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PUBLICATIONS  OF  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  PENNSYLVANIA 
EXTRA  SERIES  IN  ROMANIC  LANGUAGES  AND  LITERATURES. 

No.  7 


SPANISH   DRAMA   BEFORE 
LOPE  DE  VEGA 


BY 


J.  P.  WICKERSHAM  CRAWFORD,  PH.D. 

PROFESSOR   OF   ROMANIC   LANGUAGES   AND   LITERATURES 
IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  PENNSYLVANIA 


PHILADELPHIA 
1922 


PUBLICATIONS  OF  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  PENNSYLVANIA 

DEPARTMENT  OF  ROMANIC  LANGUAGES  AND  LITERATURES 

Extra  Series,  No.  7 


LIBRARY 

IDMVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
SANTA  BARBARA 

C 


u 


STo 

MY  WIFE 
MAY  WICKERSHAM  CRAWFORD 

THIS  LITTLE  VOLUME  IS  AFFECTIONATELY 
DEDICATED 


PREFACE 

SEVENTY  years  have  passed  since  the  first  appearance  of 
Adolph  Friedrich  von  Schack's  Geschichte  der  dramatischen 
Literatur  und  Kunst  in  Spanien,  the  first  part  of  which  was 
devoted  to  a  study  of  the  predecessors  of  Lope  de  Vega,  and 
while  many  critical  studies  have  been  written  upon  individual 
dramatists  and  many  plays,  not  mentioned  by  Schack,  have 
been  discovered  and  published,  no  attempt  has  been  made 
since  that  time  to  write  a  history  of  the  earlier  Spanish  drama. 
Limitations  of  space  have  prevented  me  from  attempting  to 
write  a  detailed  history  of  the  Spanish  drama  before  Lope  de 
Vega,  but  I  have  tried  to  give  at  least  an  outline  of  the  de- 
velopment of  dramatic  literature  in  that  period.  I  am  fully 
aware  of  the  fact  that  the  picture 'which  I  present  is  incomplete,, 
but  it  is  my  hope  that  I  have  succeeded  in  presenting  here  the 
results  of  the  studies  of  my  many  predecessors,  as  well  as  of 
my  own  reading,  and  that  this  little  book  will  serve  as  a- 
starting-point  for  further  investigation  in  a  subject  that  offers- 
so  much  of  interest. 

I  have  limited  myself  to  a  consideration  of  the  drama  in  the 
Spanish  language,  and  have,  therefore,  paid  little  attention  toi 
the  plays  of  that  period  written  in  Catalan  and  Valencian. 
With  considerable  regret,  I  have  included  only  the  Castilian 
plays  of  Gil  Vicente,  and  the  plays  in  which  the  Castilian; 
element  seems  to  predominate,  and  I  have  not  even  touched 
upon  the  many  disputed  points  in  the  biography  of  the  great 
Portuguese  poet. 

I  wish  to  express  my  gratitude  to  my  friend  and  colleague, 
Professor  Hugo  A.  Rennert,  for  his  kindness  in  reading  my 
manuscript.  It  is  to  him  that  I  owe  my  first  interest  in  this. 

5 


6  PREFACE 

subject,  and  the  inspiration  which  I  have  received  from  his 
labours  and  from  our  many  chats  regarding  our  favourite 
Spanish  dramatic  poets  has  been  a  powerful  incentive  to  me  in 
my  own  studies. 

J.  P.  W.  C. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  I 
THE  SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  ENCINA 


CHAPTER  II 
JUAN  DEL  ENCINA 20 

CHAPTER  III 
RELIGIOUS  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  RUEDA 39 

CHAPTER  IV 
FESTIVAL  AND  PASTORAL  PLAYS 65 

CHAPTER  V 

ROMANTIC  COMEDY  AND  THE  COMEDY  OF  MANNERS  BEFORE  LOPE  DE 
RUEDA 87 

CHAPTER  VI 
LOPE  DE  RUEDA,  ITALIANATE  COMEDY  AND  THE  FARCE in 

CHAPTER  VII 
RELIGIOUS  DRAMA  IN  THE  LATTER  HALF  OF  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY. . . .   137 

CHAPTER  VIII 
TRAGEDY  AND  LATER  COMEDY 152 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 183 

7 


CHAPTER  I 
THE  SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  ENCINA 

Although  material  is  almost  entirely  lacking  for  a  study  of 
the  liturgical  drama  in  Spain,  the  close  relationship  that  ex- 
isted between  the  ritual  of  the  Spanish  church  and  that  of  other 
countries  of  Western  Europe,  and  particularly  of  France 
after  the  eleventh  century,  allows  us  to  assume  that  in  Spain, 
as  elsewhere,  the  religious  drama  developed  from  the  tropes 
attached  to  the  Introit  of  the  Magna  Missa  of  Easter  and) 
Christmas.  To  the  study  of  the  origins  of  the  medieval  litur- 
gical drama,  Castilian-speaking  portions  of  the  Peninsula  con- 
tribute only  an  eleventh  or  twelfth-century  Christmas  trope 
of  a  primitive  type  from  Huesca,1  and  two  eleventh-century 
Easter  tropes  from  Silos.2 

In  spite  of  this  noteworthy  lack  of  liturgical  texts,  Spanish 
literature  may  claim  the  honor  of  possessing  in  the  Auto  de 
los  Reyes  Magos  one  of  the  earliest,  if  not  the  earliest  reli- 
gious play  in  a  modern  tongue.  This  composition,  consisting  of 
146  or  147  lines,  is  contained  in  a  manuscript  of  the  Chapter 
Library  of  Toledo,  now  preserved  at  the  National  Library 
of  Madrid,  and  on  the  basis  of  linguistic  and  scribal  considera- 
tions may  be  ascribed  to  the  middle  of  the  twelfth  century. 
It  was  probably  performed  in  some  church  in  the  city  of 
Toledo  to  celebrate  the  festival  of  the  Epiphany.  With  res- 
pect to  its  origin,  it  is  difficult  to  determine  whether  its  pro- 
Mentioned  by  Karl  Young,  Officium  Pastorum:  A  Study  of  the 
Dramatic  Developments  within  the  Liturgy  of  Christmas,  Transactions 
of  the  Wisconsin  Academy  of  Sciences,  Arts  and  Letters,  vol.  xvii,  pt. 
ii,  1914,  p.  300n. 

2  Carl  Lange,  Die  lateinischen  Osterfeiern,  Munich,  1887,  p.  24. 

9 


I0     SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

totype  is  a  play  in  French  or  a  liturgical  text  of  the  Officium 
Stellae  such  as  was  used  at  Limoges,  Rouen,  Nevers,  Com- 
piegne  and  Orleans  in  the  twelfth  century,  and  which  might 
have  been  introduced  into  Spain  by  the  Benedictines  of 
Cluny.  If  its  source  is  really  one  of  these  Latin  texts,  the 
author  derived  from  it  merely  the  arrangement  of  incidents, 
and  treated  his  material  with  independence,  originality  and 
dramatic  sense.  Instead  of  the  five  lines  recited  by  the 
Magi,  in  several  of  the  liturgical  texts,  before  their  meeting 
with  Herod,  we  find  three  monologues  in  the  Spanish  play, 
amounting  to  fifty-one  lines,  in  which  the  author  attempts 
to  give  some  individuality  to  the  Wise  Kings  by  describing 
their  doubts  as  to  whether  the  new  star  in  the  heavens  really 
betokens  the  Saviour's  birth.  The  following  scene,  in  which 
the  Magi  confer  with  one  another  concerning  the  meaning  of 
the  star,  is  not  found  in  any  liturgical  text.  Furthermore, 
the  gifts  of  the  Magi  are  spoken  of  as  a  means  to  identify  the 
Christ  Child.  He  will  choose  gold  if  a  king  of  this  world, 
myrrh  if  he  is  a  mortal  man  and  incense  if  he  is  King  of 
Heaven.  These  occur  in  the  Hymnus  Epiphaniae  of  Pruden- 
tius,  a  few  stanzas  of  which  were  included  in  the  Breviary.1 
In  the  third  scene  they  appear  before  Herod  who,  on  learn- 
ing the  object  of  their  quest,  bids  them  go  and  search  for  the 
new  King,  and  when  they  have  found  Him,  to  bring  him  word 
again  so  that  he  may  go  and  worship  also.  When  left  alone, 
Herod  becomes  the  ranting  tyrant  who  appears  in  so  many 
later  plays  and  summons  his  scribes  and  astrologers  to  in- 
terpret for  him  this  mystery.  They  fall  into  a  dispute  and 
the  play  breaks  off  abruptly.  We  may  assume  that  at  least 
one  scene,  namely,  the  Adoration  of  the  Christ  Child  by  the 
Magi,  has  been  lost.  Like  the  Old  French  and  Latin  pieces 
of  like  character,  it  has  a  rich  metrical  structure  with  ennea- 
syllabic  and  heptasyllabic  verses  and  Alexandrines  as  the  pre- 
vailing measures. 

1  A.   Bonilla  y  San   Martin,  Las  Bacantes,  o  del  origen  del  teatro, 
Madrid,  1921,  p.  72. 


THE  SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  ENCINA  1 1 

An  oft-quoted  law  of  the  Siete  Partidas*  (1256-1263)  gives 
us  valuable  information  concerning  religious  plays  in  Spain 
about  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century.  After  prohi- 
biting certain  abuses  that  will  be  discussed  later,  the  law 
expressly  declares  that  members  of  the  clergy  are  permitted 
to  present  (faser)  plays  (representaciones}  that  deal  with  the 
birth  of  Jesus  and  the  announcement  of  the  angel  to  the  shep- 
herds, the  Adoration  of  the  Magi  and  the  Resurrection.  Such 
Christmas,  Epiphany  and  Easter  plays  were  allowed  with 
reasonable  restrictions,  and  their  function  as  a  vehicle  of 
religious  instruction  is  clearly  recognized.  The  words  of  the 
text  indicate  that  these  plays  contained  dialogue  and  were 
accompanied  by  a  crude  attempt  at  acting,  and  the  ban  laid 
upon  performances  in  small  towns  or  for  the  sake  of  gain, 
seems  to  prove  that  they  were  composed  in  Spanish. 

The  history  of  the  religious  drama  during  the  two  hundred 
years  that  followed  upon  the  Siete  Partidas  is  shrouded  in  al- 
most complete  obscurity.  Not  a  single  Castilian  play  is  known 
to  have  been  composed  during  those  two  centuries  that  wit- 
nessed the  unfolding  and  culmination  of  the  English  miracle 
plays  and  the  French  miracles  and  mysteres.  Furthermore, 
even  the  few  allusions  to  dramatic  performances  during  that 
period  that  have  been  discovered,  refer  almost  entirely  to 
Catalan  and  Valencian  territory.  For  example,  a  document 
of  the  year  1360  informs  us  that  it  was  customary  for  the 
canons  of  the  Cathedral  of  Gerona  to  perform  on  Easter  a 
play  called  Las  ires  Marias.2-  A  primitive  Christmas  repre- 
sentation is  first  mentioned  at  Valencia  in  1432  and  dialogue 
was  introduced  by  the  year  I44O.3  It  is  well  known  that 
Corpus  Christi  day  was  celebrated  throughout  Western 

1  Las  Siete  Partidas  del  Rey  don  Alfonso  el  Sabio,  vol.  i,  Madrid, 
1897,  pt.  i,  tit.  vi,  ley  34. 

1  Schack,  Historia  de  la  literatura  y  del  arte  dramatico  en  Espana, 
vol.  i,  p.  224. 

1  For  early  religious  shows  at  Valencia,  see  Henri  Merimee,  L'Art 
dramatique  a  Valencia,  Toulouse,  1913,  pp.  1-19. 


I2  SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

Europe  in  the  first  half  of  the  fourteenth  century  by  a  pro- 
cession in  which  religious  bodies  and  guilds  escorted  the  Host 
through  the  streets,  and  Catalan  and  Valencian  documents 
attest  the  popularity  of  that  festival.  Sacred  scenes  were 
sometimes  represented,  as  for  example,  the  Sacrificio  de  Isaac 
and  Sueno  y  vent  a  de  Jacob,  by  the  beneficiaries  of  the 
Cathedral  of  Gerona  on  Corpus  Christi  day,  I3OO,1  and  re- 
ferences to  the  Corpus  procession  at  Valencia  date  back  to 
1355.  This  ceremony  became  increasingly  important  as  a 
religious  and  municipal  festival  and  at  the  beginning  of  the 
fifteenth  century  pageants,  called  "  entrames "  and  "  roca," 
were  constructed  to  carry  singers  and  musicians,  dressed  as 
angels,  patriarchs  and  saints,  about  the  city.  These  pageants 
were  only  moving  shows  and  probably  employed  dialogue  solely 
to  supplement  the  living  picture.  We  have  no  evidence  that 
pageants  were  similarly  employed  in  the  Castilian-speaking 
portions  of  the  Peninsula  before  the  latter  half  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  at  which  time  they  formed  a  part  of  the  Corpus 
procession  at  Seville.2 

A  passage  in  the  Cronica  del  Condestable  Miguel  Lucas  de 
Iranzo  3  gives  us  an  idea  of  the  presentation  of  religious  shows 
in  the  palaces  of  noblemen  in  the  fifteenth  century.  On 
Twelfth  Night,  1462,  the  visit  of  the  Magi  bringing  gifts  to 
the  Virgin  and  Child  was  represented,  and  we  are  told  that 
this  ceremony  took  place  each  year.  The  brief  description 
that  we  possess  does  not  allow  us  to  judge  whether  dialogue 
was  employed,  but  it  gives  evidence  of  a  practice  that  was  to 
develop  into  drama,  thirty  years  later,  in  the  hands  of  Juan 
del  Encina. 

More  than  three  hundred  years  separate  the  Auto  de  los 
Reyes  Magos  and  Gomez  Manrique's  Representation  del 
nacimiento  de  nuestro  Senor,  the  earliest  extant  example  of 

rSchack,  op.  cit.,  vol.  i,  p.  223. 

2  Jose  Sanchez- Arjona,  Noticias  referentcs  a  los  analcs  del  teatro  en 
Sevilla,  Sevilla,  1898,  pp.  3-6. 

^Memorial  historico  espanol,  vol.  viii,  Madrid,  1855,  pp.  75-76. 


THE  SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  ENCINA  i$ 

the  Officium  Pastorum  in  Spain.  Like  his  distinguished  con- 
temporary, the  Marques  de  Santillana,  Gomez  Manrique  was 
a  gallant  soldier  and  an  important  figure  in  the  political  life 
of  his  day,  as  well  as  a  gifted  poet.  His  Cancionero  is  made 
up  almost  entirely  of  lyrical  verse,  in  which  he  was  excelled! 
only  by  the  Marques  de  Santillana  and  Juan  de  Mena.  His 
Christmas  play  was  composed  between  1467  and  1481  to  pro- 
vide entertainment  for  the  nuns  at  the  convent  of  Calabazanos 
where  his  sister  Maria  was  mother  assistant.  It  presents  in 
simple,  unaffected  style  and  with  a  spirit  of  true  devotion,  the 
familiar  incidents  of  the  Christmas  story.  Joseph  doubts  the 
purity  of  Mary,  and  an  angel  explains  that  she  is  the  Virgin 
of  whom  Isaiah  prophesied.  The  Mother  tenderly  worships 
the  Child  Jesus,  mingling  joy  over  his  birth  with  tears  for 
the  pains  that  he  must  endure.  Shepherds,  obeying  the  angel's 
summons,  come  to  the  manager  to  worship,  and  kneeling  be- 
fore the  Child  proclaim  him  the  Redeemer,  while  a  choir  of 
angels  sings  or  recites  the  Gloria  in  Excelsis.  St.  Gabriel,  St. 
Michael  and  St.  Raphael  then  present  to  the  Child  the  tokens 
of  his  Passion,  the  chalice,  the  pillar  and  cords,  the  scourges, 
the  crown,  the  cross,  the  nails  and  lance,  a  bit  of  symbolism 
that  we  find  again  in  the  sixteenth-century  Aucto  de  las  donas. 
This  is  followed  by  a  charming  lullaby  composed  on  a  popular 
air  and  sung  in  chorus  by  the  nuns. 

This  little  piece  shows  slight  progress  in  dramatic  art  over 
the  Auto  de  los  Reyes  Magos.  Dialogue  is  introduced  only  in 
a  brief  scene  when  the  shepherds  discuss  the  meaning  of  the 
angel's  song.  In  the  rest  of  the  play,  each  character  merely 
recites  a  stanza  or  two  and  then  withdraws.  While  it  pre- 
serves no  liturgical  elements  and  is  completely  secular,  the 
tone  throughout  is  devout. 

A  better  idea  of  the  sort  of  Christmas  plays  of  the  time  that 
served  to  entertain  an  audience  of  peasants  and  tradespeople 
in  the  churchyard,  may  be  obtained  from  a  few  scenes  of  Fr. 
Inigo  de  Mendoza's  Vita  Christi,  first  published  about  1480. 
After  explaining  the  mysteries  of  the  Incarnation  and  An- 


I4  SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

nunciation,  the  devotional  tone  abruptly  changes  on  reaching 
the  incidents  of  the  Nativity.  Four  shepherds  are  terror- 
stricken  by  the  appearance  of  a  figure  that  seems  to  fly  through 
the  air.  They  would  like  to  hurry  to  town  to  tell  the  news, 
but  some  are  too  frightened  to  move  and  the  others  are  afraid 
of  being  taken  for  drunkards  or  fools.  While  they  are  still 
disputing,  the  angel  appears  again,  announces  the  birth  of  the 
Redeemer  of  mankind,  and  bids  them  worship  him  in  the 
doorway  where  the  beasts  of  burden  are  tied.  The  shep- 
herds finally  recover  from  their  fright  and  make  ready  to 
obey  the  summons.  Off  in  the  distance  they  see  a  strange 
light  and  hear  the  gentle  voice  of  a  Maiden  singing  to  her 
new-born  Child.  They  set  out  taking  with  them  pipe  and  reed 
and  rebec  to  honor  the  Child  as  best  they  can,  and  gifts  for  the 
Mother.  In  the  following  scene,  one  of  the  shepherds  des-- 
cribes  the  song  of  the  angels  at  the  manger  in  praise  of  the 
Christ. 

These  scenes  are  in  dialogue  form,  and  the  author's  com- 
ments serve  to  show  their  relationship  to  each  other.  The 
rustic  language  employed  recalls  the  Coplas  de  Mingo  Revulgo 
as  well  as  the  shepherds'  speech  that  we  find  in  the  plays  of 
Encina  and  other  dramatists  in  the  first  half  of  the  following 
century.  Apparently,  even  at  this  time,  the  shepherd  was  the 
chief  comic  figure  in  the  secularized  religious  drama.  In  the 
mingling  of  sacred  and  humorous  elements,  as  well  as  in  the 
use  of  rustic  language,  Im'go  de  Mendoza  was  a  precursor  of 
Encina.  In  both  cases  the  poets  probably  borrowed  these 
features  from  popular  performances  which  they  themselves 
had  often  witnessed. 

Judging  from  an  expense  account  that  has  been  preserved 
of  a  Christmas  play  or  show  presented  in  1487  in  the 
Cathedral  of  Saragossa,1  costumes  and  scenic  effects  were  not 
wholly  disregarded.  An  ox  and  an  ass  were  represented  at 
the  manger;  the  prophets  were  provided  with  wigs  and  the 
angels  with  gloves  as  well,  and  there  was  a  throne  for  the 

,  op.  cit.,  vol.  i,  pp.  267-268. 


THE  SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  ENCINA  jcj 

Virgin.  The  Chapter  paid  five  florins  to  the  stage-director 
and  two  florins  to  the  man,  woman  and  child  who  played  the 
parts  of  Mary,  Joseph  and  Jesus.  We  do  not  know  whether 
there  was  any  dialogue,  nor  whether  the  platforms  mentioned 
in  the  text  were  stationary,  or  carried  through  the  streets. 

The  aforementioned  law  of  the  Siete  Partidas,  that  gives 
us  our  first  definite  information  concerning  religious  plays, 
and  another  that  follows  closely  upon  it,1  furnish  interesting 
facts  regarding  certain  games  that  were  in  vogue  about  the 
middle  of  the  thirteenth  century.  These  were  called  juegos 
de  escarnios  and  were  attended  by  so  many  abuses  that 
ecclesiastical  officers  and  judges  were  ordered  to  suppress 
them.  The  games  were  held  in  churches  and  elsewhere,  and 
were  open  to  the  public.  Members  of  the  clergy  and  laymen 
took  part  in  them,  the  participants  wore  clerical  garb  and 
mimicry  of  the  clergy  was  a  prominent  feature. 

Later  Spanish  documents  that  are  more  specific  lead  us  to 
believe  that  these  games  were  related  to  the  New  Year  revels 
held  by  the  sub-deacons  in  cathedrals  and  collegiate  churches 
under  the  name  of  Feast  of  Fools,  and  to  the  celebrations  on 
the  days  of  St.  Stephen,  St.  John  the  Evangelist  and  the  Holy 
Innocents  by  the  deacons,  priests  and  choir-boys.  Documents 
of  the  fifteenth  century  give  considerable  information  con- 
cerning the  mock  ceremony  of  the  Boy  Bishop  or  Obispillo  at 
Gerona  and  Lerida,  and  we  have  a  fairly  complete  account  of 
this  practice  at  Seville  in  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury. One  of  the  commonest  features  on  these  occasions  was 
the  farcing  of  certain  portions  of  the  office  or  mass.  This  con- 
sisted in  the  addition  of  a  trope  and  of  a  few  words,  at  first 
in  Latin,  and  later  in  the  vernacular.  Such  a  combination 
was  called  farsia,  farsura,  epistola  farcita  or  farsa,  and  the 
later  use  of  this  word  to  designate  a  comic  scene  indicates  the! 
character  that  it  must  have  early  assumed.  Church  Councils 
and  Cathedral  Chapters  protested  time  and  again  against  the 
ludi  theatrales,  larvae,  monstra,  turpia  carmina  and  derisorii 

'Part  i,  tit.  vi,  ley  36. 


j6      SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

sermones  that  were  introduced  as  a  part  of  these  post-Christ- 
mas revels,  but  the  inferior  clergy  cheerfully  risked  a  fine  for 
the  pleasure  of  conducting  the  services  once  during  the  year, 
and  the  onlookers  crowded  the  churches  to  see  the  fun.  It 
is  difficult  to  determine  the  influence  of  these  festivals  upon 
the  drama,  but  one  is  tempted  to  ascribe  to  them  some  of  the 
comic  scenes  that  enlivened  the  early  Christmas  plays.1 

The  whole  question  of  the  origin  of  comedy  in  Spain  is 
beset  with  difficulties.  We  know  that  the  reign  of  the  Roman 
mime  did  not  come  to  an  end  with  the  fall  of  Rome,  nor  was 
his  voice  silenced  by  the  vigorous  protests  of  Church  Fathers 
and  Councils  throughout  the  Middle  Ages.2  The  frequent 
references  to  him,  and  to  the  joculator,  his  twin-brother,  are 
ample  proof  of  his  success  as  an  entertainer.  The  Siete  Par- 
tidas  frequently  mention  remedadores,  bufones  and  juglares, 
and  we  know  that  the  household  of  Lucas  de  Iranzo  included 
locos  as  well  as  musicians  and  dancers.3  Their  presence  was 
indispensable  at  weddings  and  festivals,  and  their  accomplish- 
ments consisted  in  singing,  playing  musical  instruments,  ex- 
hibiting trained  animals,  acrobatic  feats  and  buffooneries.  A 
study  of  the  early  sixteenth-century  plays  furnishes  some 
information  respecting  the  repertory  of  these  entertainers, 
but  the  extent  of  their  contribution  to  the  development  of 
comedy  cannot  be  determined. 

There  is  abundant  documentary  evidence  that  the  Royal 
Entry  was  celebrated  by  municipalities  with  processions  and 
games  of  various  kinds.  We  are  told,  for  example,  that  when 
Alphonso  XI  made  his  entry  into  Seville  in  1327,  there  were 

JFor  the  ceremony  of  the  Obispillo,  see  Jose  Sanchez -Arjona,  El  teatro 
en  Sevilla  en  los  sighs  XVI  y  XVII,  Madrid,  1887;  and  J.  P.  W. 
Crawford,  A  Note  on  the  Boy  Bishop  in  Spain,  Romanic  Review,  vol. 
xii,  1921. 

*E.  Faral,  Les  Jongleurs  en  France  an  Moyen  Age,  Biblioth-eque  de 
I'Ecole  des  Hautes  Etudes,  vol.  187,  Paris,  1910,  and  A.  Bonilla  y  San 
Martin,  Las  Bacantes,  o  del  origen  del  teatro,  Madrid  1921,  pp.  49-61. 

^Memorial  historico  espanol,  vol.  viii,  p.  47. 


THE  SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  ENCINA  17 

masquerades  (mascaras},  representations,  triumphal  arches 
and  knightly  games.1  By  representations  were  doubtless 
meant  pageants,  without  action  or  dialogue.  The  initiative 
for  these  pageants  rested  with  the  municipalities,  assisted  by 
the  guilds  and  brotherhoods. 

A  procession  held  at  Saragossa  in  1399,  in  honor  of  the 
coronation  of  Martin  I,  included  a  pageant  representing  a, 
castle  bearing  four  sirens  and  many  angels  who  "  sang 
sweetly  ",  and  also  a  child  dressed  in  white  who  represented 
the  King.1  During  the  banquet  that  followed,  a  masquerade 
was  performed  which  required  considerable  scenery,  and  in- 
dicates the  tendency  toward  symbolism  in  such  entertainments. 
In  the  procession  held  in  the  same  city  in  1414  to  celebrate  the 
coronation  of  Ferdinand  of  Antequera,  a  mock  siege  was  re- 
presented, followed  by  a  castle-pageant  bearing  on  the  tower 
four  maidens  symbolizing,  Justice,  Truth,  Peace  and  Mercy, 
who  sang  in  praise  of  the  virtues  of  the  King,  represented  by 
a  child  seated  in  the  centre.3  This  pageant  is  of  especial  in- 
terest because  of  its  early  use  of  allegory.  The  songs  em- 
ployed on  this  occasion  were  for  a  long  time  incorrectly  as- 
cribed to  Enrique  de  Villena.4 

The  Cronica  del  Condestable  Miguel  Lucas  de  Iranzo,  cov- 
ering the  period  from  1459  to  1471,  gives  an  excellent  idea  of 
the  diversions  of  a  nobleman  of  his  time.  After  a  dinner 
given  to  celebrate  his  marriage  in  1461,  a  group  of  gentlemen 
of  his  household  entered,  wearing  masks  and  representing  that 
they  had  been  freed  from  captivity  in  order  to  attend  the 
fiesta,  and  executed  a  pantomimic  dance.  More  interesting  is 
the  masquerade  performed  before  Lucas  de  Iranzo  two  days 
after  Christmas  in  the  year  1463.  A  number  of  knights, 
dressed  in  Moorish  costume  and  representing  themselves  as 

1Schack,  op.  cit.,  vol.  i,  p.  225. 

*M.  Mila  y  Fontanals,  Origenes  del  teatro  Catalan,  Barcelona,  1895, 
pp.  236-38. 

'Schack,  op.  cit.,  vol.  i,  pp.  235-236. 

4  A.  Morel-Fatio,  Romania,  vol.  xxvi,  p.  127. 


!g     SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

the  escort  of  the  King  of  Morocco,  challenge  the  Christian 
knights  to  a  juego  de  canas,  promising  to  renounce  their* 
Prophet  in  the  event  of  defeat.  We  can  readily  surmise  the 
outcome  of  the  combat,  which  results  in  the  complete  rout  of 
the  Moors  and  the  pouring  of  a  bucketful  of  water  on  the 
King's  head  as  a  symbol  of  baptism. 

Among  the  works  of  Gomez  Manrique,  we  have  the  text 
of  a  simple  masquerade  written  to  celebrate  the  birth  of  his 
nephew.  Here  Justice,  Prudence,  Temperance,  Courage, 
Faith,  Hope  and  'Charity  recite  stanzas,  endowing  the  child 
with  the  virtues  they  represent.  More  elaborate  is  the  mas- 
querade composed  by  Gomez  Manrique  in  1467  at  the  com- 
mand of  the  Infanta  Isabel,  to  celebrate  the  fourteenth  birth- 
day of  her  brother  Alphonso,  who  had  been  proclaimed  King 
of  Castile  in  1465  as  a  result  of  the  rebellion  against  Henry 
IV.  After  a  laudatory  introduction  in  which  it  is  explained 
that  the  Muses  have  come  to  honor  the  young  King,  nine 
ladies  of  the  Court,  including  the  Infanta  Isabel,  prophesy 
happiness,  liberality,  power  and  success  in  love  for  the  youth 
who  was  to  die  the  following  year  without  having  occupied 
the  throne. 

The  dialogues  and  debates  which  appear  in  the  Cancionerd 
de  Baena,  and  more  particularly  in  the  Cancionero  de  Her-1 
nando  del  Castillo  are  non-dramatic,  but  a  few  of  these  themes 
were  contributing  factors  in  the  creation  of  the  courtly  drama 
in  the  early  part  of  the  sixteenth  century.1  The  requesta  dd 
amores,  for  example,  was  dramatized  by  Encina  and  many  of 
his  successors,  and  the  well-known  debat  of  the  seasons  is 
found  in  two  plays  of  Gil  Vicente.  The  best  of  the  dialogues 
written  in  Spain  in  the  fifteenth  century  is  the  delightful 
Dialogo  entre  el  Amor  y  un  vie  jo  by  Rodrigo  Cota  de  Magua- 
que.  An  old  man,  disillusioned  with  life's  pleasures,  has  re- 
tired to  a  lonely  spot  where  he  hopes  to  find  rest  for  his  tor- 
tured spirit.  When  Cupid  intrudes  upon  his  privacy,  the 

JThe  dramatic  nature  of  the  earlier  disputas  is  discussed  by  A.  Bonilla 
y  San  Martin,  Las  Bacantes,  o  del  origen  del  teatro,  pp.  62-69. 


THE  SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  EN  C  IN  A  ^ 

old  man  angrily  bids  him  to  withdraw,  for  he  has  already 
brought  him  untold  misery.  The  tiny  god  humbly  pleads  his 
cause,  alleging  all  the  blessings  that  he  confers  upon  men. 
The  old  man  is  deceived  by  these  specious  arguments  and 
offers  to  become  once  more  the  servant  of  Love,  whereupon 
Cupid  brutally  ridicules  his  pretensions,  makes  sport  of  his 
infirmities  and  promises  him  still  greater  suffering.  While 
not  intended  to  be  performed,  these  stanzas  have  real  dramatic 
quality,  and  are,  furthermore,  of  interest  because  they  have 
many  points  of  similarity  with  Encina's  Representation  del 
Amor  and  Egloga  de  Cristino  y  Febea. 


CHAPTER  II 
JUAN  DEL  ENCINA 

IN  his  famous  Loa  de  la  comedia,1  in  which  Agustin  de 
Rojas  outlines  the  early  history  of  the  drama,  the  honor  of 
being  the  first  Spanish  dramatist  is  ascribed  to  Juan  del 
Encina.  While  this  statement  may  not  be  literally  true,  we 
must  concede  to  Encina  the  title  of  founder  of  the  Spanish 
drama.  The  fact  that  no  less  than  eight  editions  of  his 
Cancionero  appeared  between  1496  and  1516,  is  proof  that 
his  plays  were  read  and  admired,  and  there  is  no  question 
that  his  religious  and  pastoral  dramas  were  accepted  as  models 
by  other  poets  for  half  a  century. 

Documents  recently  discovered  throw  considerable  light 
upon  his  family  and  his  own  early  years.  He  was  born  in 
the  year  1468  at  Salamanca.  His  father,  Juan  de  Fermoselle, 
was  a  shoemaker  who,  in  spite  of  his  humble  circumstances, 
succeeded  in  providing  his  sons  with  a  good  education.  One 
of  these,  Diego,  became  a  Master  of  Arts  and  Professor  of 
Music  at  the  University  of  Salamanca;  Miguel  was  ordained 
a  priest  and  occupied  various  posts  in  the  Cathedral  of  Sala- 
manca ;  Pedro  was  also  a  cleric  and  another  son,  Antonio,  was 
an  attorney.  Records  show  that  our  poet,  Juan  de  Fermoselle, 
was  a  choir  boy  in  the  Cathedral  in  1484,  receiving  instruc- 
tion from  Fernando  de  Torrijos.  By  1490  he  had  discarded 
his  father's  surname  and  is  mentioned  as  Chorister  with  the 
name  of  Encina. 

He  studied  at  the  University  of  Salamanca,  where  he  pro- 
included  in  El  viaje  entretenido,  Madrid,  1603,  which  may  be  read 
conveniently  in  the  Nueva  Biblioteca  de  Autores  espanoles,  vol.  xxi. 
20 


JUAN  DEL  ENCINA  21 

bably  obtained  both  his  baccalaureate  and  licentiate,  since  he 
is  mentioned  with  these  degrees  in  later  documents.  We 
may  accept  his  Aucto  del  repelon  as  a  picture  of  student  life, 
as  he  knew  it,  at  Salamanca.  It  is  likely  that  he  there  came 
under  the  influence  of  Lebrixa,  to  whose  Gramatica  castellana^ 
Encina  was  indebted  in  the  composition  of  his  own  Arte  de  la 
poesia  castellana.  A  considerable  portion  of  his  verse  dates 
from  his  student  days,  since  he  states  in  the  dedication  of  his 
Cancionero  to  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  that  his  poems  were 
composed  between  the  age  of  fourteen  and  twenty-five.  His 
interest  in  classical  studies  is  attested  by  his  paraphrase  of 
Vergil's  Eclogues,  dedicated  to  the  young  Prince  John  in  1492. 

While  at  the  University,  he  won  the  favor  of  its  'Chancellor, 
Gutierre  de  Toledo,  who  was  probably  instrumental  in  secur- 
ing for  him  a  position  in  the  service  of  his  brother,  Fadrique 
Alvarez  de  Toledo,  Duke  of  Alba.  He  probably  entered  the 
latter's  household  in  the  autumn  of  the  year  1492,  and  re- 
mained there,  discharging  the  duties  of  musician  and  court 
poet,  until  at  least  the  year  1498. 

His  first  two  plays  were  probably  presented  on  Christmas 
Eve,  I492,1  in  a  hall  or  chapel  of  the  Duke  of  Alba.  The 
first,  which  serves  merely  as  a  prologue  to  the  Christmas  play 
that  followed,  is  a  sort  of  "  disguising  "  which  introduces  two 
shepherds  who  extol  the  virtues  of  the  Duke  and  Duchess, 
and  discuss  their  own  personal  affairs.  It  appears  that  the 
protection  offered  to  Encina  by  the  Duke  of  Alba  had  aroused 
the  enmity  of  less  fortunate  rivals.  In  this  play,  Juan,  who 
seems  to  be  Encina  himself,  complains  that  his  verses  are 
circulating  in  corrupt  form,  and  promises  an  edition  of  his 
works  that  will  silence  his  detractors.  One  of  these  rivals 
seems  to  have  been  the  poet,  Lucas  Fernandez,  and  Juan  speaks 
with  contempt  of  his  pretensions  to  enter  the  service  of  the 

JEugen  Kohler  in  his  Sieben  spanische  dramatische  Eklogen,  p.  20, 
argues  that  the  traditional  date  of  1492  is  open  to  question  since  the 
passage  in  the  Loa  de  la  comedia  does  not  necessarily  assign  that  year 
as  the  date  of  representation  of  Encina's  first  play. 


22  SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

Duke  of  Alba.  The  pastoral  form  of  this  "  disguising  "  was 
probably  suggested  by  Vergil's  Eclogues,  and  to  these  Encina 
was  also  indebted  for  his  use  of  the  word  egloga  to  designate 
his  plays.  In  order  to  introduce  a  little  local  colour,  which 
might  amuse  his  patrons,  the  shepherds  in  this  scene  speak 
the  rude  dialect  of  the  country-folk  in  the  vicinity  of  Sala- 
manca,1 and  this,  through  his  influence,  became  the  rule  in  later 
pastoral  and  religious  plays. 

The  play  that  followed  is  a  primitive  example  of  the  Offi-~ 
cium  Pastorum,  and  represents  a  blending  of  the  Christmas 
liturgy  and  the  Gospels.  The  interlocutors  are  four  shep- 
herds, Matthew,  Mark,  Luke  and  John,  who  have  just  heard 
the  announcement  of  Christ's  birth.  In  simple  language,  they 
discuss  this  fulfillment  of  the  prophecies,  each  of  the  shepherds 
employing  the  phraseology  of  the  corresponding  Gospel. 
Singing  and  dancing,  they  set  out  to  worship  the  Child,  and 
the  play  ends  with  a  charming  carol.  While  this  composition 
has  little  dramatic  value,  it  is  attractive  by  reason  of  its  sim- 
plicity and  the  spirit  of  devotion  that  pervades  it. 

The  Representation  a  la  muy  bendita  pasion  y  muerte  de 
nuestro  precioso  Redentor  was  presented  in  the  chapel  of 
the  Duke  of  Alba  on  Good  Friday  of  the  year  1493  or  1494. 
Two  hermits,  who  have  learned  of  the  Crucifixion  of  Jesus, 
seek  the  sepulchre  and  meet  Veronica  who  relates  to  them  the 
Saviour's  Passion,  according  to  the  Gospel  accounts,  and  shows 
them  the  cloth  on  which  Christ's  features  were  imprinted. 
They  kneel  in  prayer,  and  an  angel  appears  who  explains  in 
simple  language  the  doctrine  of  the  Resurrection.  A  villan- 
cico,  in  which  happiness  is  promised  to  the  afflicted,  concludes 
the  play. 

The  Representation  a  la  santisima  resurrecion  de  Cristo, 
presented  in  the  chapel  at  Easter,  1493  or  1494,  is  a  primitive 
form  of  the  Ofhcium  Peregrinorum.  As  Joseph  of  Arima- 
thaea  kneels  before  the  open  sepulchre,  Mary  Magdalene  re- 

1  Lamano  y  Beneite,  Et  dialecto  vulgar  salmantino,  Salamanca,  1915, 
p.  9. 


JUAN  DEL  ENCINA  23 

lates  to  him  that  Jesus  had  appeared  to  her  in  the  figure  of  a 
gardener.  Luke  and  Cleopas  then  enter  and  declare  that 
the  Saviour  had  appeared  to  them  on  the  road  to  Emmaus 
and  had  even  broken  bread  with  them.  These  faithful  dis- 
ciples explain  devoutly  the  significance  of  the  Resurrection  for 
mankind,  and  an  angel  bids  them  be  of  good  cheer  since 
Christ  has  risen  from  the  dead.  Encina  refrains  from  pre- 
senting Jesus  in  these  plays,  and,  in  consequence,  the  in- 
cidents of  the  Passion  and  the  Resurrection  are  merely  nar- 
rated. In  the  latter  composition,  there  is  a  considerable 
didactic  element  which  was  to  become  a  more  prominent 
feature  in  the  plays  of  Lucas  Fernandez  and  Diego  Sanchez 
de  Badajoz. 

The  two  Carnival  eclogues  were  performed  at  the  palace 
of  the  Duke  of  Alba  on  Shrove  Tuesday,  probably  of  the 
year  I494.1  The  first,  which  merely  serves  as  a  prologue  to 
the  second,  is  a  colloquy  in  pastoral  style  between  two  shep- 
herds, Bras  and  Beneito,  in  which  they  extol  the  virtues  of 
the  Duke,  and  lament  his  rumored  departure  to  serve  in  the 
army  against  France.  Another  shepherd  announces  that 
peace  2  has  been  signed  between  the  two  countries,  and  the 
play  ends  with  a  villancico. 

The  second  Carnival  eclogue  presents  four  shepherds,  who 
are  testing  the  capacity  of  their  stomachs  in  anticipation  of 
the  forty  days  of  fasting  that  begin  on  the  morrow.  One 
of  the  shepherds  gives  a  humorous  account  of  the  defeat  of 
Carnival  by  Lent,  which  recalls  the  thirteenth-century 
Bataille  de  karesme  et  de  charnage  and  also  La  pelea  que  ovo 
don  Carnal  con  la,  Quaresma  of  Juan  Ruiz.  This  little  farce 
ends  with  a  villancico,  which  has  much  in  common  with  some 
of  the  songs  of  the  Goliards,  and  is  unsurpassed  among 
Encina's  lyrics. 

The  Egloga  representada  en  requesta  de  amores,  performed 

1  For  a  discussion  of  the  date,  see  Kohler,  op.  cit.,  pp.  24-25. 
1  The  treaty  referred  to  was  negotiated  by  Ferdinand  and  'Charles  VIII 
in  September,  1493. 


24     SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

in  all  probability  at  Christmas,  1494,  is  conceived  in  an  entirely 
different  spirit  from  the  plays  alreadly  examined.  While  the 
pastoral  element  in  the  aforementioned  plays  is  derived  from 
a  desire  to  give  a  realistic  representation  of  everyday  life,  the 
theme  of  the  requesta  de  amores  is  distinctly  aristocratic. 

The  shepherd  Mingo  courts  the  shepherdess  Pascuala  and 
urges  her  to  accept  his  love.  His  plea  is  interrupted  by  the  ap- 
pearance of  a  knight  who  soon  proves  to  be  a  rival.  He  sneers 
at  Mingo's  pretensions;  the  two  suitors  abuse  one  another, 
and  finally  Mingo  suggests  that  the  shepherdess  choose  be- 
tween them.  The  knight  agrees  to  this,  and  Pascuala  expresses 
her  preference  for  him,  on  condition  that  he  become  a  shep- 
herd. The  courtier  gladly  accepts  the  terms,  offers  Mingo 
his  friendship,  and  the  play  ends  with  a  song. 

The  requesta  de  amores  theme,  which  is  identical  with  the 
pastourelle,  is  found  occasionally  in  the  courtly  literature  of 
the  fifteenth  and  early  sixteenth  centuries.1  Encina  himself 
composed  a  sort  of  contrasto  between  a  shepherd  and  knight, 
published  in  the  Cancionero  musical.  The  thirteenth-century 
Jeu  de  Robin  et  Marion  of  Adam  de  la  Halle  represents  the 
same  sort  of  transition  from  lyric  poetry  to  drama  as  we  find 
in  this  eclogue  of  Encina. 

The  second  Egloga  en  requesta  de  amores,  with  the  same 
characters  as  the  above,  was  performed  after  an  interval  of 
a  year,  probably  at  Christmas,  1495,  and  consists  of  two  scenes. 
In  a  brief  prologue,  the  timid  Mingo  offers  to  the  Duke  and 
Duchess  his  collected  works,  (which  were  published  in  1496), 
and  in  rather  awkward  fashion  we  are  informed  that  a  year 
has  passed  since  the  incidents  described  in  the  preceding  play. 
The  knight,  now  known  as  Gil,  wearies  of  pastoral  life,  and 
longs  to  return  to  the  palace  with  Pascuala.  The  latter  dons 
the  robes  of  a  lady  and  amazes  Mingo  and  his  wife,  Menga, 
by  her  beauty,  which  Mingo  ascribes  to  the  power  of  Love. 

*R.  Menendez  Pidal  discusses  the  early  popular  scrranillas  in  his 
essay  entitled  La  primitiva  poesia  lirica  espanola,  published  in  Estudios 
litcrarios,  Madrid,  1920. 


JUAN  DEL  ENCINA  2$ 

Gil  urges  Mingo  to  accompany  them,  but  the  shepherd  hesi- 
tates, alleging  his  ignorance  of  courtly  manners  and  his  delight 
in  the  simple  joys  of  pastoral  life,  which  he  describes  in  verses 
that  reveal  true  poetic  feeling.  The  idea  of  becoming  a  gentle- 
man, however,  tickles  his  vanity,  and  with  keen  satisfaction  he 
puts  on  his  best  clothes  and  adopts  the  airs  of  a  courtier. 
The  play  ends  with  a  song  in  praise  of  all-powerful  Love. 
Here  the  well-known  debat  on  the  relative  advantages  of  city 
and  country  life  is  combined  with  the  theme  of  the  power  of 
Love,  frequently  treated  in  the  fifteenth-century  cancioneros 
and  ultimately  derived  from  Ovid's  Ars  amatoria. 

These  two  compositions  cannot  be  considered  as  popular  in 
any  sense  of  the  word.  We  are  not  dealing  here  with  real 
shepherds,  but  with  shepherds  portrayed  in  accordance  with 
an  aristocratic  literary  tradition.  We  have  abundant  evidence 
of  the  contempt  of  the  cortesano  for  the  villano  which 
was  so  frequently  expressed  in  the  courtly  literature  of 
the  day,  and  the  dramatic  basis  of  these  plays,  performed  be- 
fore an  audience  of  gentlefolk,  lies  in  the  portrayal  of  the 
shortcomings  of  rustics  in  trying  to  meet  aristocracy  on  its 
own  level.  The  situation  also  gave  the  author  an  opportunity 
to  satirize  pleasantly  some  of  the  affectations  in  manners  and 
language  imposed  by  fashion. 

In  addition  to  the  eight  plays  already  mentioned,  Encina's 
Cautioner  o,  which  first  apeared  at  Salamanca  in  1496  with 
a  dedication  to  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  contained  a  number 
of  other  compositions.  His  Arte  de  la  poesia  castellana  con- 
siders the  theory  and  practice  of  verse-writing  as  understood 
at  the  close  of  the  fifteenth  century  by  the  court  poets.  In 
his  paraphrase  of  Vergil's  Eclogues,  he  uses  freely  his  original 
in  order  to  make  it  applicable  to  the  historical  events  of  his 
own  time.  He  does  not  excel  a  number  of  his  contemporaries 
in  long  allegorical  compositions  and  religious  verse,  but  he 
had  a  special  aptitude  for  vers  de  societe  which  deserve  high 
praise  for  their  musical  qualities  rather  than  for  their  content. 
He  is  at  his  best  in  pastoral  lyrics  which  often  have  the  true 
savor  of  popular  poetry. 


26     SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

The  Representation  del  Amor,  first  published  in  the  1507 
edition  of  his  Cancionero,  has  an  especial  interest  because  of 
its  performance  at  Salamanca  or  Alba  de  Tormes  in  1497 
before  his  patron,  Prince  John  of  Castile,  and  his  bride,  Mar- 
garita of  Austria,  whose  marriage  had  been  solemnized  at 
Burgos  on  April  second  of  that  year.  To  celebrate  this  happy 
occasion,  Encina  chose  the  theme  of  the  omnipotence  of  Love, 
treated  in  burlesque  fashion,  with  a  shepherd  as  the  victim  of 
the  tiny  god's  shaft.  Cupid  enters,  armed  with  bow  and  ar- 
rows, asserting  his  power  over  all  mortals  in  terms  that  closely 
resemble  the  boasting  loquaciousness  of  Amor  in  Rodrigo 
Cota's  Dialogo.  He  meets  the  shepherd  Pelayo,  who  failing 
to  recognize  him,  asks  by  whose  permission  he  hunts  on  for- 
bidden territory.  Pelayo  refuses  to  heed  Cupid's  warning 
and  is  laid  low  by  an  arrow.  The  shepherd,  Juanillo,  finds 
Peiayo  suffering  keenly  from  his  wound,  the  nature  of  which 
the  unfortunate  victim  is  unable  to  understand,  even  when 
Juanillo  explains  that  it  was  caused  by  Amor.  But  to  Pelayo, 
the  word  Amor  suggests  only  morder  or  mortaja;  he  is  un- 
acquainted with  courtly  terms.  A  knight,  who  joins  them, 
adds  his  testimony  to  the  anguish  caused  by  Love,  who  tor- 
tures, but  does  not  kill.  In  the  charming  song,  "  Ojos  garzos 
ha  la  nina  ",  with  which  the  play  ends,  the  poet  probably  re- 
ferred to  the  newly-married  Princess,1  who  was  to  become  a 
widow  a  few  months  later. 

Another  Christmas  play,  often  styled  Egloga  de  las  grandes 
lluvias,  was  performed  on  Christmas  Eve,  1498,  probably  at 
the  palace  of  the  Duke  of  Alba.  Four  shepherds,  seated 
around  a  fire,  talk  of  the  heavy  rainfall  and  floods  that  have 
caused  severe  losses.  They  begin  to  play  pares  and  nones,  but 
the  game  is  interrupted  by  the  angel's  song,  announcing  the 

'Carolina  Michaelis  de  Vasconcellos,  Notulas  sobre  cantares  e  vilhan- 
eicos  peninsulares  e  a  respeito  de  Juan  del  Enzina,  Revista  de  Filologia 
Espanola,  vol.  v,  1918,  pp.  346-50.  This  song,  which  is  not  included 
in  the  Spanish  Academy  edition,  may  be  read  conveniently  in  Menendez 
y  Pelayo's  Antologia  de  poetas  liricos,  vol.  iv,  p.  373. 


JUAN  DEL  ENCINA  2/ 

birth  of  Christ.  They  do  not  understand  at  first;  one  of  the 
shepherds  confuses  the  word  Salvador  with  saludador.  Fin- 
ally they  take  their  simple  gifts  and  set  out  to  visit  the  manger. 
Here  we  have  a  crude  attempt  at  realism  which  almost  com- 
pletely overshadows  the  sacred  element. 

Reference  is  made  in  the  play  to  the  post  of  choir-master 
in  the  Cathedral  which  had  become  vacant.  The  shepherds 
discuss  who  the  fortunate  appointee  will  be,  and  when  Anton 
suggests  Juan,  Miguellejo  objects  that  they  will  probably  pre- 
fer some  outsider.  It  has  recently  been  discovered  that  the 
post  referred  to  was  that  of  choir-master  left  vacant  by  the 
death  of  Fernando  de  Torrijos  in  1498,  and  that  Encina  and 
Lucas  Fernandez  were  numbered  among  those  who  solicited 
the  appointment.  Fernandez  was  able  to  count  on  the  support 
of  influential  friends  and  relatives,  and  the  question  was 
finally  settled  by  a  Commission  of  the  Chapter,  which  decided 
that  the  salary  attached  to  the  post  be  divided  among  three 
choristers,  one  of  whom  was  Lucas  Fernandez.  Encina's  dis- 
appointment over  his  failure  to  secure  the  place,  coupled  with 
his  feeling  that  his  services  were  not  adequately  appreciated 
by  his  patron,  led  him  to  shake  the  dust  of  Salamanca  from 
liis  feet. 

An  anonymous  and  undated  Christmas  play,  entitled  Egloga 
interlocutoria,  has  also  been  attributed  to  Encina  by  several 
critics.  Like  Encina's  second  Christmas  eclogue,  with  which 
it  has  a  number  of  verbal  similarities,  this  play  presents  four 
shepherds  who  have  heard  the  news  of  Christ's  birth.  Un- 
like the  former  play,  however,  the  shepherds  show  little  in- 
terest in  this  announcement  and  are  completely  absorbed  by 
their  petty  quarrels  and  their  desire  for  amusement.  They 
gamble  for  a  while,  and  the  play  ends  quite  abruptly  with  a 
eulogy  in  coplas  de  arte  mayor  of  the  Duke  and  Duchess.  It 
has  been  noted  x  that  this  play  has  the  same  incidents  as  the 
Egloga  de  las  grandes  lluwas,  arranged  in  the  reverse  order. 

liR.  E.  House,  A  study  of  Encina  and  the  Egloga  interlocutoria, 
Romanic  Review,  vol.  vii,  1916,  pp.  458-69. 


2g     SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

It  shows  carelessness  in  workmanship,  and  is  far  inferior  to 
any  play  printed  with  Encina's  name.  It  has  been  argued 
that  it  was  written  in  haste  by  Encina  for  a  Christmas  celebra- 
tion; that  its  author  did  not  intend  to  publish  it,  and  that  its 
preservation  was  due  to  the  actors  who  wrote  it  out  from 
memory.  Whether  this  be  true,  or  whether  someone  un- 
scrupulously pilfered  from  Encina's  plays  after  the  latter 
had  left  the  service  of  the  Duke  of  Alba,  is  difficult  to  de- 
termine. 

In  the  plays  already  examined,  Encina  shows  no  influence 
of  foreign  models.  His  indebtedness  to  Vergil  is  limited 
to  his  use  of  the  word  eclogue  to  designate  plays  where  shep- 
herds appear,  and  to  the  pastoral  form  in  the  prologues  to 
the  first  Christmas  and  first  Carnival  plays.  The  religious 
compositions  represented  an  attempt  to  adapt  the  liturgical 
drama  to  the  requirements  of  a  small  audience  in  a  private 
home,  while  the  two  Eglogas  en  requesta  de  amores  and  the 
Representation  del  Amor  dramatized  themes  found  in  the 
lyric  poetry  of  his  time. 

We  do  not  know  the  exact  date  of  Encina's  first  visit  to 
Italy.  He  may  have  been  one  of  the  thousands  of  pilgrims 
who  were  attracted  to  the  Holy  City  by  the  Jubilee  of  1500. 
In  a  document  dated  September  15,  1502,  by  virtue  of  which 
he  received  an  appointment  from  the  Pope  to  a  benefice  at 
Salamanca,  he  is  described  as  "  Clerigo  salmantino,  bachiller, 
familiar  de  S.  S.  y  residente  en  la  curia  romana  ".  Neither  do 
we  know  whether  he  assumed  these  new  duties  at  once,  or 
whether  he  tarried  for  some  time  at  Rome.  It  is  evident, 
however,  that  he  retained  the  Pope's  friendship,  for  in  1509 
he  received  an  appointment  from  the  Papal  Nuncio  to  an 
archdeaconship  and  canonship  at  Malaga,  and  took  possession 
of  these  offices  at  the  beginning  of  the  year  1510.  He  was 
evidently  regarded  as  an  important  personage,  since  he  was 
employed  by  the  Chapter  on  various  missions.  However,  his 
relations  with  the  Chapter  were  somewhat  strained,  chiefly  be- 
cause he  had  not  taken  Orders,  and  also  because  of  frequent 
absences  from  his  post  of  duty. 


JUAN  DEL  ENCJNA  29 

On  May  17,  1512,  he  obtained  permission  to  go  to  Rome, 
and  probably  remained  there  until  July  of  the  following  year. 
It  is  difficult  to  overestimate  the  inspiration  that  Encina  must 
have  received  as  a  result  of  his  visit  to  the  center  of  artistic 
and  literary  activity  at  the  culminating  period  of  the  Renais- 
sance. Toward  the  end  of  the  year  1511,  Raphael's  frescoes 
in  the  Camera  della  Segnatura  were  completed,  and  about 
a  year  later  Michael  Angelo's  frescoes  on  the  ceiling  of  the 
Sistine  Chapel  were  unveiled.  Encina  was  in  Rome  when 
Julius  II  died  and  when  the  son  of  Lorenzo  the  Magnificent 
was  elected  to  the  Papacy  on  March  n,  1513.  He  must  have 
been  in  the  crowd  that  witnessed  the  magnificent  ceremony  of 
taking  possession  of  the  Lateran  on  April  eleventh,  or  per- 
haps took  part  in  the  procession  as  a  member  of  the  Papal 
choir.  We  do  not  know  when  he  secured  the  Pope's  favor, 
but  the  fact  that  Leo  X  aided  him  subsequently  proves  that 
he  had  a  liking  for  the  poet.  It  is  probable  that  Encina  ob- 
tained the  Pope's  protection  because  of  his  accomplishments 
as  a  musician,  for  it  is  well  known  that  Leo  X  had  a  predilec- 
tion for  music,  and  drew  to  his  court  the  best  musicians  of 
Italy  and  from  abroad. 

We  have  documentary  evidence  that  he  had  returned  to 
Malaga  by  August,  1513,  and  that  on  March  31,  1514,  he 
announced  his  intention  of  returning  to  Rome.  The  objec- 
tions of  the  Chapter  were  overruled  by  a  Bull  of  Leo  X  who 
continued  to  extend  to  him  his  favour,  and  shortly  after  his 
return  to  Spain,  he  received  on  May  21,  1516,  an  order  frorrt 
the  Bishop  of  Malaga  to  appear  at  V-alladolid  under  penalty 
of  excommunication.  We  do  not  know  the  reason  for  this 
summons,  but  apparently  he  was  still  supported  by  the  Pope, 
for  he  was  appointed  to  the  lucrative  post  of  "  subcolector  de 
espolios  de  la  Camara  Apostolica "  which  permitted  him  to 
absent  himself  from  his  duties  at  Malaga.  Finally  on  Feb- 
ruary 21,  1519,  he  resigned  his  position  at  Malaga  and  re- 
ceived in  exchange  a  benefice  at  Moron.  It  seems  that  he 
never  assumed  the  duties  of  this  latter  position,  for  he  was 


30     SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

appointed  prior  of  the  church  of  Leon  by  the  Pope  in  March 
of  the  same  year  and  took  possession  of  that  post  by  proxy, 
since  he  was  still  residing  in  Rome. 

He  had  now  passed  his  fiftieth  year  and  he  determined  to 
cast  aside  worldly  affairs,  take  Orders  and  make  a  pilgrimage 
to  the  Holy  Land.  He  gives  an  account  of  this  journey  in  his 
Tribagia,  o  via  sacra  de  Hierusalem,  an  insipid  composition 
in  coplas  de  arte  mayor,  published  at  Rome  after  his  return 
in  1521  (?).  Here  he  describes  the  profound  impression 
made  upon  him  by  the  sacred  places  he  visited  and  relates  that 
he  spent  three  nights  in  prayer  at  the  Holy  Sepulchre  and  said 
his  first  mass  on  Mount  Zion. 

Returning  to  Rome  in  the  autumn  of  1520,  he  probably  re- 
mained there  until  1523  when  his  name  first  appears  on  the 
minutes  of  the  Chapter  of  the  church  of  Leon.  Documents 
recently  discovered  show  that  he  was  awarded  exceptional 
honors  by  the  Chapter  and  that  he  fulfilled  his  duties  as  prior 
from  October  2,  1526  until  October  2,  1528.  His  death  oc- 
curred between  January  27,  1529  and  January  10,  1530,  and 
there  is  good  reason  to  believe  that  he  was  buried  at  Sala- 
manca. 

This  brief  sketch  of  Encina's  later  years  gives  abundant 
evidence  of  the  fascination  exercised  by  Italy  upon  his  restless, 
inquiring  mind.  The  intense  literary  activity  of  that  country 
must  have  awakened  his  interest,  particularly  the  recent  in- 
novations in  dramatic  literature  with  which  he  became  familiar. 
The  Italian  versions  of  Plautus  and  Terence  which  had  ap- 
peared at  Ferrara,  Mantua,  Rome,  Florence  and  other  cities 
must  have  attracted  his  attention,  but  he  was  particularly  in- 
terested in  a  new  form  of  pastoral  drama,  compared  with 
which  his  own  pastoral  plays  must  have  seemed  crude.  Poli- 
ziano's  Orfeo  was  but  the  first  of  a  long  series  of  mythological 
and  allegorical  plays,  and  pastoral  eclogues,  recited  on  festival 
occasions  at  the  great  courts,  were  in  fashion.  We  shall  see 
that  three  of  the  plays  composed  by  Encina  after  his  first 
visit  to  Rome,  namely,  the  Egloga  de  ire's  pastores,  Egloga 


JUAN  DEL  ENCINA  31 

de  Cristino  y  Febea  and  Egloga  de  Placida  y  Vitoriano, 
show  the  influence  of  Italian  literature,  and  that  one  of  them 
is  directly  derived  from  an  Italian  eclogue. 

Two  new  plays  appeared  in  the  edition  of  Encina's  Can- 
cionero  published  at  Salamanca  in  1509,  the  Egloga  de  tres 
pastores  and  Aucto  del  Repelon.  The  first  of  these,  as  its 
name  indicates,  is  a  pastoral  composition,  but  it  has  little  in 
common  with  the  poet's  earlier  plays  of  shepherds.  FilenO 
is  driven  almost  to  the  point  of  madness  by  the  indifference  of 
his  sweetheart,  Cefira.  Unable  to  secure  sympathy  from 
Zambardo  who  falls  asleep  over  the  recital  of  his  anguish,  he 
breaks  out  in  a  furious  invective  against  the  god  of  Love, 
and  then  confides  in  his  friend  'Cardonio  the  cause  of  his 
suffering.  Cardonio  counsels  moderation,  protesting  that  his 
friend  blames  all  women  for  the  cruelty  of  one.  Then  follows 
a  sort  of  contrasto,  in  which  Fileno  attacks  women  with  the 
bitterness  shown  by  Boccaccio  in  the  Corbaccio,  to  which  he 
himself  refers,  while  Cardonio  eulogizes  women  and  theii* 
virtues.  As  soon  as  Fileno  is  left  alone,  he  curses  Cefira  for 
the  suffering  she  has  caused  him,  takes  leave  of  his  flock,  calls 
upon  death  to  release  him  from  his  pain,  and  stabs  himself. 
When  Cardonio  returns,  he  finds  him  lying  on  the  ground, 
his  body  stained  with  blood.  He  mourns  tenderly  the  death 
of  his  friend,  calls  Zambardo  to  aid  in  the  burial  and  inscribes 
an  epitaph  over  Fileno's  tomb. 

The  play  is  composed  in  eighty-eight  octaves  in  coplas  de 
arte  mayor,  Encina's  first  and  only  attempt  to  use  this  meter 
for  dramatic  composition.  It  shows  more  power  and  serious- 
ness of  purpose  than  its  author  had  hitherto  displayed.  Love 
is  here  no  trivial  matter,  as  in  the  two  eclogues  en  requesta  de 
amores,  but  a  consuming  passion  that  drives  the  hapless  Fileno 
to  his  death.  It  is  the  first  tragedy  of  the  Spanish  theatre, 
and  occupies  the  same  position  in  the  drama  as  the  Carcel  de 
Amor  of  Diego  de  San  Pedro  in  Spanish  fiction.  Juan  de 
Valdes  spoke  approvingly  of  it  in  his  Dialogo  de  la  lengua, 
although  he  expressed  a  preference  for  the  Egloga  de  Placida 
y  Vitoriano. 


32  SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

The  Egloga  de  ires  pastores  shows  a  great  advance  in 
dramatic  art  over  earlier  Spanish  plays,  but  at  least  one 
episode  is  a  reminiscence  of  his  own  Christmas  eclogues, 
namely,  the  opening  scene  in  which  Zambardo  falls  asleep 
while  Fileno  is  mourning  his  unrequited  love  for  Cefira.  It 
is  interesting  to  find  the  burlesque  element  appearing  in  the 
first  serious  Spanish  play  of  secular  character.  The  dispute 
between  Fileno  and  Cardonio  concerning  the  relative  virtues 
and  imperfections  of  women  is  the  first  example  of  the  dra- 
matic treatment  of  a  theme  that  occupied  the  attention  of  the* 
poets,  misogynists  and  philogynists,  of  the  fifteenth  and  six- 
teenth centuries,  and  which  occurs  later  in  the  Farsa  del 
matrimonio  of  Diego  Sanchez  de  Badajoz,  the  Comedia 
Tibalda  of  Per  Alvarez  de  Ay  lion  and  other  plays. 

The  latter  part  of  this  play,  dealing  with  the  suicide  and 
burial  of  Fileno,  is  a  close  adaptation  of  the  second  eclogue 
of  the  Italian  poet,  Antonio  Tebaldeo.  Born  at  Ferrara  in 
1463,  Tebaldeo  served  for  a  time  as  preceptor  in  Italian  poetry 
to  the  Princess  Isabella  d'Este,  and  later  acted  as  secretary 
to  Lucrezia  Borgia.  He  went  to  Rome  about  the  year  1513 
and  there  became  intimate  with  the  leading  men  of  letters  of 
his  time.  When  the  Imperial  troops  sacked  the  Holy  City  in 
1527,  he  lost  all  his  property,  for  which  throughout  his  life 
he  cherished  resentment  against  Charles  V.  He  died  in  the 
year  1537.  His  early  verses  were  published  in  1499  without 
the  poet's  knowledge  by  his  cousin  Jacopo  Tebaldeo.  These 
consist  of  four  pastoral  eclogues,  epistles  in  terza  rima  and 
about  three  hundred  sonnets,  which  are  characterized  by  ex- 
aggeration and  abuse  of  rhetorical  figures  to  gain  an  unex- 
pected effect.  His  verses  were  admired  by  the  generation 
that  found  delight  in  the  affectations  of  Serafino  Aquilano  and 
Benedetto  Gareth  (or  Cariteo)  and  he  shared  with  the  former1 
a  revival  in  popularity,  both  at  home  and  abroad,  toward  the 
middle  of  the  sixteenth  century  when  preciosite  again  became 
the  fashion. 

His  second  eclogue  consists  of  two  hundred  and  fifty-one 


JUAN  DEL  ENCINA 


33 


lines  in  terza  rima.  Here  the  lovelorn  Damone  refuses  the 
proffered  sympathy  of  his  friend  Tirsi,  explaining  that  he 
wishes  to  bear  his  burden  of  grief  alone.  When  Tirsi  with- 
draws, the  enamoured  shepherd  declares  that  he  is  ready  for* 
death  since  Amarilli  turns  a  deaf  ear  to  his  wooing.  As  he 
stabs  himself,  he  bids  a  tender  farewell  to  his  flock,  now  left 
without  a  shepherd,  and  with  his  last  breath  pardons  the  maiden 
for  her  cruelty.  When  Tirsi  returns,  he  sees  his  friend  lying 
in  a  pool  of  blood  with  a  dagger  in  his  heart.  He  tenderly 
mourns  his  death,  prepares  the  body  for  burial  and  composes 
an  epitaph  for  his  tomb. 

It  is  of  interest  to  note  the  changes  made  by  Encina  in 
adapting  this  eclogue.  He  expanded  the  two  hundred  and 
fifty-one  lines  of  the  Italian  composition  into  a  play  which 
occupies  thirty-nine  pages  in  the  edition  of  the  Spanish 
Academy.  He  introduced  a  third  character,  the  shepherd 
Zambardo,  probably  because  it  offered  him  an  opportunity  for 
a  bit  of  burlesque,  and  the  debat  regarding  the  virtues  and 
imperfections  of  women  is  also  original.  He  closely  followed 
his  original  in  describing  Fileno's  death  and  burial,  and  trans- 
formed into  a  real  play  what  was  little  more  than  a  literary 
exercise. 

With  respect  to  the  date,  we  can  only  say  with  certainty 
that  the  Egloga  de  tres  pastores  was  written  after  1499,  the 
year  of  publication  of  Tebaldeo's  eclogue.  Since  it  was  not 
included  in  the  1507  edition  of  the  Cancionero,  we  are  per- 
haps justified  in  assuming  that  it  was  written  between  1507 
and  1509.  We  have  no  evidence  in  regard  to  the  place  of 
its  performance. 

The  Aucto  del  repelon,  likewise  first  published  in  the  1509 
edition  of  the  Cancionero,  is  the  only  play  of  Encina  that 
deals  entirely  with  farcial  material.  It  treats  of  the  hazing 
of  a  couple  of  shepherds  by  a  group  of  students,  a  conflict 
between  town  and  gown  that  was  common  enough  at  the 
Universities  during  the  Middle  Ages  and  Renaissance.  In 
a  sense  it  may  be  regarded  as  a  precursor  of  the  pasos  of 


34     SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

Lope  de  Rueda,  with  the  important  difference  that  it  seems  to 
be  a  separate  entity,  and  not  merely  a  part  of  a  longer  play. 
Its  many  allusions  to  academic  customs  lead  us  to  believe  that 
it  was  performed  at  Salamanca  before  an  audience  of  students. 
We  have  no  means  of  determining  whether  this  is  an  early 
play  or  whether  on  one  occasion,  after  his  return  from  Italy, 
the  poet  forsook  Arcadia  to  give  us  a  bit  of  actual  life.1 

The  Egloga  de  Cristino  y  Febea  presents,  with  pastoral  set- 
ting, the  conflict  between  asceticism  and  worldliness,  and  the 
triumph  of  the  flesh  over  the  spirit.  The  shepherd  Cristindl 
is  weary  of  life  with  its  bitter  disappointments  and  disillu- 
sions, and  determines  to  do  penance  for  his  sins.  In  spite 
of  the  protests  of  his  friend  Justino,  he  departs  to  don  the 
garb  of  a  hermit.  Cupid  is  furious  on  learning  of  his  dis- 
loyalty and  bids  the  nymph  Febea  bring  the  shepherd  to  hisi 
senses.  A  brief  conversation  with  Febea  suffices  to  prove 
to  'Cristino  that  the  Church  is  not  his  vocation,  and  he  pro- 
mises Cupid  to  discard  his  cassock  provided  that  he  be  granted 
the  love  of  Febea.  Cupid  agrees  to  these  terms,  but  warns 
him  not  to  repeat  his  experiment.  By  this  time,  CristinO 
realizes  that  a  hermitage  is  only  suitable  for  centenarians,  and 
that,  after  all,  there  are  more  good  shepherds,  or  courtiers,  in 
the  world  than  friars. 

This  play  was  not  published  in  any  edition  of  Encina's  Ca«~ 
cionero,  and  the  unique  copy  in  which  it  has  been  preserved 
bears  no  date.  We  can  only  say  with  certainty  that  it  was 
written  before  the  publication  in  1514  of  Lucas  Fernandez's 
Farsa  o  cuasi  comedia  del  soldado,  which  contains  a  reference 
to  it.  It  is  evident  that  it  contains  reminiscences  of  Rodrigd 
Cota's  Dido  go  entre  el  Amor  y  un  vie  jo,  which  must  be  re- 
garded as  the  source  of  the  poet's  inspiration.  At  the  same 
time,  the  anti-clerical  tone  and  the  figure  of  the  nymph  seem 
to  be  due  to  Encina's  acquaintance  with  Italian  literature. 

We    have    documentary    evidence    that    a    composition    of 

'Kohler,  op.  cit.,  pp.  119-21,  presents  arguments  for  Italian  influence  on 
this  play,  which  seem  to  me  unconvincing. 


JUAN  DEL  EN  C IN  A 


35 


Encina  was  performed  at  Rome  on  January  6,  1513  at  the 
house  of  Cardinal  Arborea  before  the  Spanish  Ambassador 
and  an  audience  composed  of  distinguished  members  of  the 
Spanish  colony,  and  demi-mondaines,  and  this  play  has  been 
generally  identified  as  the  Egloga  de  Placida  y  Vitoriano.^ 
The  unique  original  that  is  extant  bears  neither  date  nor  place 
of  publication,  and  nothing  is  known  of  an  edition  published 
at  Rome  in  1514  except  that  it  was  mentioned  by  Moratin. 
It  is  much  longer  and  shows  a  more  complex  construction  of 
plot  than  any  of  its  predecessors.  It  opens  with  a  prologue 
recited  by  a  shepherd,  who  addressing  the  compana  nobre  and 
especially  nuestro  amo  (probably  Cardinal  Arborea),  gives  an 
outline  of  the  plot  and  asks  for  attention.  The  eclogue  or 
comedy  (both  terms  are  used)  consists  of  thirteen  scenes, 
two  of  which,  the  sixth  and  tenth,  are  of  the  nature  of  pasos 
and  were  introduced  for  comic  relief.  A  villancico  is  sung 
at  the  close  of  the  sixth  scene. 

Placida  mourns  because  she  believes  herself  abandoned  by 
her  lover  Vitoriano.  His  absence  makes  her  long  for  death, 
and  at  the  same  time  she  curses  him  for  his  treachery.  In 
her  anguish,  she  calls  for  her  recreant  lover  and  determines  to* 
flee  to  the  mountains  and  forests  where  the  wild  beasts,  the 
springs  and  rivers  will  have  pity  upon  her  grief.  After  she 
withdraws,  Vitoriano  appears,  complaining  that  he  has  been 
unable  to  escape  from  the  bonds  that  unite  him  to  his  mistress 
since  absence  has  only  increased  his  love  for  her.  He  seeks 
the  counsel  of  his  friend  Suplicio,  who  urges  him  to  forget 
the  old  love  by  taking  up  a  new  one,  and  suggests  that  he  pay 
court  to  the  fair  Flugencia.  Vitoriano  accedes  to  this  with! 
some  reluctance,  and  Suplicio  promises  to  arrange  the  meeting. 

^enhora  Michaelis  de  Vasconcellos,  Revista  de  filologia  espanola,, 
vol.  v,  pp.  362-63,  believes  that  the  play  of  Encina  referred  to  in  a  letter 
to  Francesco  Gonzaga,  Marquis  of  Mantua,  was  the  Representation  del 
Amor.  This  letter  states  that  the  play  dealt  with  "  le  forze  et  accident! 
di  amore  ",  which  applies  as  well  to  the  Egloga  de  Placida  y  Vitoriano 
as  to  the  Representation  del  Amor. 


36     SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

In  the  next  scene,  Vitoriano  greets  Flugencia,  declaring  him- 
self a  slave  of  her  beauty.  She  makes  sport  of  his  protesta- 
tions, but  coquettishly  gives  him  reason  to  hope  that  his  de^ 
sires  will  be  gratified.  The  scene  is  skilfully  represented  and 
shows  Encina  at  his  best  as  a  dramatist. 

The  following  scene,  derived  from  the  Celestina,  has  little 
connection  with  the  rest  of  the  play.  Flugencia  meets  and 
.gossips  with  the  comadre  Eritea,  an  infamous  hag,  who  is 
skilled  in  magic  love-potions,  abortions  and  other  disgrace- 
ful practices.  They  take  leave  of  one  another  and  Suplicioi 
and  Vitoriano  reappear.  Vitoriano  tells  Suplicio  that  Flugen- 
cia can  never  make  him  forget  his  love  for  Placida  and  that  he 
would  rather  die  a  thousand  deaths  than  break  faith  with  her. 
He  goes  off  in  search  of  Placida,  leaving  Suplicio  alone, 
who  bitterly  reproaches  Cupid  for  having  wrought  this  trans- 
formation in  his  friend.  Vitoriano  returns  in  a  state  of  great 
anguish,  for  a  shepherd  has  told  him  that  Placida  had  been 
seen  seeking  some  lonely  spot  and  lamenting  the  infidelity  of 
her  lover.  He  determines  to  die  since  he  has  been  guilty  of 
so  great  cruelty.  While  Suplicio  is  questioning  the  shepherd, 
Vitoriano  slips  away. 

The  dialogue  that  follows  between  the  shepherds  Gil  and 
Pascual  is  in  the  nature  of  an  interlude  and  resembles  the 
rude  representation  of  shepherds  found  in  Encina's  Christmas 
plays.  The  burlesque  purpose  of  the  scene  is  evident.  They 
talk  about  the  strange  conduct  of  Placida  and  Vitoriano,  and 
agree  that  love  often  makes  city  folk  ridiculous.  They  play 
a  game  of  dice  and  then  withdraw,  singing  a  villancico. 

Placida  appears,  lamenting  her  cruel  fate  and  desirous  only 
of  death  since  she  has  lost  the  love  of  Vitoriano.  With  bitter 
reproaches  that  recall  those  of  the  abandoned  Dido,  she 
plunges  into  her  heart  a  dagger  left  behind  by  Vitoriano,  and 
calls  upon  Cupid  to  receive  her  sacrifice.  Vitoriano  enters, 
mourning  the  absence  of  his  sweetheart,  but  Echo  alone  an- 
swers his  laments.  He  comes  upon  the  corpse  of  Placida,  be- 
comes deathly  pale  and  is  overwhelmed  with  grief  when  he 


JUAN  DEL  ENCIKA 


37 


learns  that  she  had  ended  her  days  with  his  own  dagger. 
He  desires  to  take  his  life,  but  Suplicio  warns  him  that  in 
doing  so,  he  would  lose  his  soul  as  well  as  his  body,  and  only 
consents  to  leave  him  alone  on  the  promise  that  he  will  do 
himself  no  injury. 

This  scene  is  followed  by  the  Vigilia  de  la  enamorada 
muerta,  a  sacrilegious  parody  of  the  OfUcium  Defunctorum  in 
which  the  god  Cupid  is  invoked.  We  need  not  wonder  that 
the  play  was  not  printed  in  any  edition  of  the  Cancionero, 
nor  that  it  was  placed  in  the  Index  of  1559.  The  fact  that 
parodies  of  this  kind  were  composed  by  a  number  of  Encina's 
contemporaries  does  not  mitigate  the  offense,  but  serves  to 
explain  it.  Probably  the  most  famous  example  is  found  in 
the  Liciones  de  Job  of  Garci  Sanchez  de  Badajoz,  and  a  sim- 
ilar irreligious  spirit  animates  the  Siete  gozos  de  amor  of 
Rodriguez  del  Padron,  the  Dies  mandamientos  de  amor  and 
Pater  Noster  de  las  mujeres  of  Mossen  Gaqull,  and  other  com- 
positions included  in  the  Condon  ero  general  de  Hernando  del 
Castillo. 

The  need  for  comic  relief  explains  the  following  scene,  in 
which  the  two  shepherds  express  doubts  concerning  Suplicio's 
good  faith  and  show  little  interest  when  he  tells  them  that 
Placida  has  put  an  end  to  her  life.  They  even  refuse  to  aid 
in  her  burial  until  they  have  had  a  nap.  Vitoriano  then  ap- 
pears, dagger  in  hand.  He  desires  to  die  without  confession, 
and  commends  his  soul  to  Venus.  At  that  moment  Venus 
presents  herself  and  stays  his  hand,  assuring  him  that  Placida 
is  not  really  dead  and  offering  to  restore  her  to  her  lover  if 
he  will  have  faith.  Placida  is  resuscitated  through  the  good 
offices  of  Mercury  and  the  lovers  are  re-united.  The  play 
ends  with  singing  and  dancing.  Following  the  text  are  ten 
condones  which  are  not  the  work  of  Encina,  and  also  a  farced 
version  of  the  Nunc  Dimittis  by  the  dramatist  Hernan  Lopez 
de  Yanguas. 

While  this  play  has  rather  a  series  of  disconnected  episodes 
than  a  well-knit  plot,  it  shows  a  decided  advance  over  Encina's 


38  SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

earlier  compositions,  and  some  of  the  new  elements  undoub- 
tedly have  an  Italian  source.  The  denouement  brought  about 
by  the  intervention  of  a  classical  goddess  is  particularly  char- 
acteristic of  the  Italian  pastoral  drama,  which  frequently  de- 
fied all  laws  of  probability.  At  the  same  time,  one  scene  de- 
rived from  the  Celestina  shows  that  he  had  not  lost  contact 
with  the  literature  of  his  own  country,  and  the  burlesque 
scenes  in  which  shepherds  serve  as  a  foil  to  the  extravagance 
of  the  protagonists,  recall  the  poet's  own  eclogues  en  requests 
de  amores. 

The  measures  used  by  Encina,  chiefly  octosyllabic  verses  of 
seven,  eight,  nine  and  ten-line  strophes,  together  with  decimas, 
double  redondUlas,  quintillas  and  coplas  de  arte  mayor  give 
to  his  plays  a  lyrical  quality.  It  is  also  noteworthy  that  all 
of  his  plays,  with  the  exception  of  the  introduction  to  the  first 
Christmas  eclogue,  the  Egloga  de  las  grandes  lluvia\s  and  the 
Egloga  de  tres  pastores,  conclude  with  a  villancico  or  can- 
torcillo,  usually  accompanied  by  a  dance.  The  second  Egloga 
en  request®  de  amores  and  the  Egloga  de  Placida  y  Vitoriano\ 
are  divided  into  two  parts  by  a  song.  In  the  majority  of 
cases  the  text  is  included,  and  the  music  of  some  of  them  has 
been  preserved  in  the  Cancionero  musical.  Most  of  these 
songs  were  sung  by  four  persons,  and  this  fact  seems  to  have 
determined  the  number  of  characters  in  many  of  the  early, 
plays.  A  fourth  shepherd  was  introduced  at  the  very  end  of 
the  Aucto  del  repelon  so  that  they  might  be  able  to  "  cantar 
dos  por  dos  ". 

All  forms  of  dramatic  entertainment  known  in  Spain  of  the 
fifteenth  century  found  literary  expression  in  the  plays  of 
Juan  del  Encina.  The  numerous  editions  of  his  Cancionero 
prove  that  his  innovations  awakened  interest,  and  his  influence 
upon  the  development  of  religious  plays,  festival  representa- 
tions and  upon  a  long  series  of  pastoral  plays,  cannot  be  ques- 
tioned. His  practice  of  combining  recitation  with  song  was 
continued  by  Lucas  Fernandez,  Gil  Vicente  and  other 
poets,  and  leads  directly  to  the  zarsuela  in  the  time  of  Cal- 
deron  de  la  Barca.  < 


CHAPTER  III 
RELIGIOUS  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  RUEDA 

Further  evidence  of  dramatic  activity  at  Salamanca  in 
Encina's  time  is  found  in  the  plays  of  Lucas  Fernandez,  pub- 
lished in  that  city  in  1514.  The  title  page  of  this  edition  re- 
fers to  the  author  as  a  native  of  Salamanca.  His  uncle, 
Martin  Gonzalez  de  Catalapiedra,  was  Professor  of  Music  at 
the  University  of  Salamanca,  and  we  have  already  seen  that  in 
1498  Fernandez  was  a  rival  of  Encina  for  the  post  of  choir- 
master left  vacant  by  the  death  of  Fernando  de  Torrijos.  He 
gives  abundant  evidence  in  his  plays  of  his  interest  in  music, 
and  his  acquaintance  with  the  dramatic  compositions  of 
Encina  is  attested  by  several  references.  The  plays  of  Fer- 
nandez did  not  enjoy,  apparently,  the  same  success  as  those 
of  his  illustrious  contemporary.  So  far  as  we  know,  he  is 
not  mentioned  by  any  writer  of  his  time,  nor  were  his  plays 
reprinted  in  his  lifetime.  In  fact  even  his  name  was  forgot- 
ten until  Gallardo  republished  two  of  his  plays  in  i859/  and 
the  edition  of  1514  was  not  reprinted  in  full  until  1867. 

Of  his  six  extant  plays,2  three  are  pastoral  compositions, 
one  is  a  Passion  Play,  and  two,  namely,  the  Egloga  o  farsa 
del  nascimiento  de  nuestro  Redemptor  Jesucristo  and  the 
Auto  o  farsa  del  nascimiento  de  nuestro  Senor  Jesucristo,  deal 
with  the  Nativity.  The  latter  shows  in  its  general  plan  a 
marked  resemblance  to  Encina's  Egloga  de  las  grandes  lluvias. 
Here  we  have  a  homely  scene  of  every-day  life  which  in- 
troduces the  Nativity.  The  shepherd  Pascual  enters,  com- 

1El  Criticon,  nos.  4,  5,  Madrid,  1859. 

2  An  entry  in  Fernando  Colon's  Registrum  proves  that  the  original 
edition  contained  seven  plays. 

39 


40     SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

plaining  of  the  cold  and  rain,  and  reciting  a  long  list  of  all 
the  good  things  he  will  eat  at  the  first  opportunity.  He  lights 
a  fire  and  calls  his  companion  Lloreinte.  They  began  to  play 
a  game  and  Juan,  another  shepherd,  appears  and  tells  them  of 
the  song  of  the  angels.  Pascual  and  Lloreinte  are  at  first 
incredulous  and  make  sport  of  their  companion,  but  finally  are 
convinced  that  the  strange  light  they  had  noticed  in  the) 
heavens  must  have  been  a  token  of  the  birth  of  Christ.  The 
shepherds  talk  in  learned  fashion  of  the  Redemption  and  of 
the  prophets  who  had  foretold  the  coming  of  Christ,  and  they 
depart  for  the  manger,  singing  in  praise  of  the  Child. 

The  Egloga  o  farsa  del  nascimiento  de  nuestro  Redemptor 
Jesucristo  serves  as  an  introduction  to  the  manger  scene,  al- 
though the  latter  is  not  represented.  After  a  comic  scene  be- 
tween two  shepherds,  the  hermit  Macario  appears,  who  tries 
to  explain  to  them  that  the  Incarnation  is  at  hand.  They 
make  sport  of  him,  ridiculing  him  as  a  seller  of  indulgences, 
but  another  shepherd  confirms  Macario's  message  and  an- 
nounces to  them  that  Christ  has  been  born  of  a  Virgin  at 
Bethlehem.  The  two  shepherds  are  still  unconvinced,  but 
when  they  hear  a  new  proclamation  of  the  angels,  they  kneel 
and  sing  "  Et  homo  f actus  est ".  After  many  questions — 
questions  that  would  naturally  suggest  themselves  to  untutored 
minds,  although  to  us  they  seem  slightly  irreverent — Macario 
explains  the  doctrines  of  the  Incarnation  and  Redemption. 
The  shepherds  then  depart  for  the  manger  with  their  simple 
gifts  and  the  play  ends  with  a  villancico. 

A  reference  in  this  latter  play  enables  us  to  date  it  shortly 
after  I5OO,1  and  the  former,  which  seems  more  primitive,  may 
be  ascribed  to  approximately  the  same  period.  In  all  pro- 
bability they  were  performed  in  the  Cathedral,  or  at  least  in 
its  cloisters  or  portico,  as  was  the  practice  at  Toledo  in  isn.2 
These  plays  have  more  dramatic  interest  than  the  Christmas 


e,  Teatro  esf>anol  del  siglo  XVI,  Madrid,  1885,  pp.  31-32. 
'Canete,  op.  cit.,  p.  80. 


41 

plays  of  Encina.  At  the  same  time,  the  clerical  element  is 
more  pronounced.  Their  purpose  was  to  teach  dogma  rather 
than  merely  to  make  the  audience  familiar  with  the  incidents 
of  the  Nativity,  and  this  tendency  is  still  further  developed 
in  the  plays  of  Diego  Sanchez  de  Badajoz.  The  function  of 
the  shepherds  was  to  provide  entertainment,  and  also  by  their 
feigned  ignorance  to  provoke  an  explanation  of  theological 
doctrines. 

Few  men  can  be  said  to  have  created  a  national  drama,  yet 
the  title  of  creator  of  the  drama  in  Portugal  belongs  unques- 
tionably to  Gil  Vicente.  We  have  no  evidence  of  the  existence 
of  dramatic  performances  in  that  country  before  his  time  and 
he  himself  tells  us  that  his  first  play  was  also  the  first  in  Por- 
tugal. It  is  possible  that  he  had  in  mind  Court  performances 
and  that  his  statement  does  not  exclude  the  possibility  of  the 
existence  of  religious  representations,  but  if  drama  existed 
at  all  in  Portugal  in  the  fifteenth  century,  it  was  in  an  unde- 
veloped state  and  his  own  extraordinary  production  was  due 
almost  entirely  to  his  own  originality  and  exceptional  talents. 

On  June  7,  1502,  Gil  Vicente,  dressed  as  a  herdsman  and 
accompanied  by  about  thirty  courtiers  in  similar  costume,  en- 
tered the  apartment  of  Queen  Maria  in  the  Royal  Palace  of 
Lisbon  and  offered  congratulations  to  her  and  to  King  Manuel 
and  members  of  the  royal  family  on  the  birth  of  Prince  John. 
He  tells  of  the  rejoicing  in  Portugal  and  in  the  Spanish  court 
over  that  happy  event,  and  prophesies  that  the  child  will  some 
day  reign  as  John  III  and  will  inherit  all  the  glories  of  the 
first  and  second  kings  of  that  name.  His  companions  offer 
simple  gifts,  and  then  all  withdraw. 

This  composition,  called  Monologo  or  Visitafao  do  vaqueiro, 
was  a  primitive  type  of  masquerade,  and  was  written  in 
Castilian  as  a  compliment  to  the  Queen,  who  was  the  third 
daughter  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella.  A  series  of  marriages 
between  Spanish  princesses  and  members  of  the  Portuguese 
royal  family  had  made  the  Spanish  language  fashionable  at 
Lisbon  where  the  Court,  and  court  poets  as  well,  were  prac- 


42  SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

tically  bi-lingual.  This  explains  why  Vicente  felt  free  to 
write  plays  in  either  language,  as  determined  by  the  circum- 
stances attending  their  performance,  and  also  to  assign  Cas- 
tilian  parts  to  some  characters  and  Portuguese  to  others,  in 
the  same  play. 

It  appears  that  prior  to  1502,  Gil  Vicente  was  in  the  ser- 
vice of  Dona  Leonor,  widow  of  John  II,  and  that  he  had 
already  written  some  verse.  His  position  as  court-entertainer 
seems  to  have  been  determined  by  the  success  of  his  first  at- 
tempt at  play-writing.  Dona  Leonor  was  so  delighted  that 
she  requested  the  performance  be  repeated  at  the  following 
Christmas  matins,  and  from  that  time  until  1536,  there  were 
but  few  years  that  did  not  witness  the  performance  under  royal 
patronage  of  some  auto  or  tragicomedies  or  farfa,  of  which 
Vicente  was  the  author. 

He  deemed  the  little  Monologue  unsuited  for  performance 
at  Christmas,  and  wrote  a  new  play,  the  Auto  pastoril  castelh- 
ano,  composed,  as  its  title  indicates,  in  Castilian,  and  this1 
was  likewise  presented  at  the  Royal  Palace. 

The  transition  from  monologue  to  dialogue  marks  an  ad- 
vance in  the  poet's  dramatic  art ;  the  action  is  developed  by  the 
introduction  of  six  characters  and  the  lyrical  gift,  in  which 
he  excelled,  is  seen  to  better  advantage  than  in  the  earlier  com- 
position. The  shepherd  Bras  makes  sport  of  his  companion 
Gil  who  prefers  a  quiet  nook  on  the  hillsides  with  his  flock  to 
the  diversions  in  which  his  fellows  take  such  delight.  The 
beauty  of  the  heavens  has  more  charm  for  him  than  the  pret- 
tiest shepherdess  in  the  neighborhood.  Their  conversation 
is  interrupted  by  the  arrival  of  the  newly-married  Silvestre 
who  recites  at  length  the  pedigree  of  his  bride  and  the  objects 
that  constitute  her  dowry.  Other  shepherds  join  the  group 
and  they  begin  to  play  various  games.  They  finally  fall 
asleep  and  are  awakened  by  the  angel's  song  announcing 
the  birth  of  the  Redeemer.  Gil  explains  to  them  that  the 
Saviour  is  born,  and  they  depart  with  their  gifts  for  the 
manger,  singing  in  praise  of  the  Christ  Child. 


RELIGIOUS  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  RUED  A         43 

The  scene  at  the  manger  is  tenderly  portrayed.  In  their 
homely  fashion,  they  pay  homage  to  the  Mother  and  Child, 
and  take  leave,  singing  a  delightful  little  canfoneta.  Gil  ex- 
plains to  them  that  the  prophecies  of  Solomon,  Malachi  and 
Micah  have  been  fulfilled,  and  paraphrases  a  part  of  the 
Song  of  Songs.  It  is  likely  that  Vicente  was  indebted  to 
Encina  for  the  general  plan  of  the  play,  but  he  showed  a 
deeper  poetic  feeling  and  a  more  refined  and  subtle  understand- 
ing than  his  predecessor. 

Dona  Leonor  was  again  pleased  by  the  entertainment  and 
requested  another  play  for  the  following  Twelfth  Night. 
Her  gracious  enthusiasm  must  have  been  embarrassing  to  the 
poet,  for  the  interval  was  too  short  to  allow  him  to  complete 
the  play  that  he  proposed  to  write  for  that  occasion.  Per- 
haps the  scene  in  Fernandez's  Egloga  o  farsa  del  nascimiento , 
in  which  two  shepherds  make  fun  of  the  hermit  Macario,  sug- 
gested to  him  the  introduction  to  this  new  play,  the  Auto  dos 
Reis  Magos.  A  shepherd  named  Gregorio  has  been  seeking 
the  'Christ  Child  for  thirteen  days  in  accordance  with  the 
angel's  summons.  He  is  joined  by  another  shepherd  named 
Valerio,  and  they  are  met  by  a  hermit  who  tells  them  that 
they  will  find  the  object  of  their  search.  But  the  hermit  in- 
spires in  them  no  confidence.  He  rejoices  that  humble  shep- 
herds should  leave  their  flocks  to  worship  the  Lord  of  Lords, 
but  they  ridicule  him  as  a  seller  of  indulgences  and  ask  him 
whether  it  is  a  sin  to  sneeze  or  to  pull  off  a  cricket's  leg. 
The  hermit  retains  his  dignity  and  declares  that  all  those  who 
do  not  dedicate  themselves  to  the  worship  of  the  Christ  Child 
stray  from  the  true  path.  "  But ",  they  reply,  "  surely  it  would 
be  a  sin  not  to  love  the  shepherdesses  who  are  God's  most 
perfect  creatures  ".  A  gentleman  appears  who  announces  that 
three  Kings  have  seen  a  strange  star  in  the  heavens  and 
have  come  to  worship  the  Redeemer.  The  hermit  explains  that 
this  is  the  fulfilment  of  the  prophecies,  the  Wise  Men  enter 
singing  in  praise  of  the  Virgin  and  Child,  and  the  play  ends 
abruptly. 


44  SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

In  the  Auto  da  Sibilla  Cassandra,  performed  at  the  Convent 
of  Enxobregas  before  Dona  Leonor  at  Christmas  matins,  pro- 
bably in  1509  or  1513,  Vicente  attempted  to  write  a  Pro- 
phet's play  with  pastoral  setting.  It  is  well  known  that  the 
Erythraean  Sibyl  appeared  in  the  pseudo-Augustinian  sermon 
Contra  ludaeos,  Paganos  et  Arianos  as  one  of  the  prophets 
who  foretold  the  coming  of  the  Messiah  and  pronounced  the 
awe-inspiring  prophecy  of  the  Fifteen  Signs  of  Judgment  Day. 
A  portion  of  this  sermon  was  used  in  many  churches  as  a  les- 
son for  some  part  of  the  Christmas  offices,  and  the  Versus 
Sibyllae  were  often  sung  at  matins  on  Christmas  day.  Three 
of  the  twelve  Sibyls  known  to  the  Middle  Ages  x  were  intro- 
duced in  this  play,  namely,  the  Erythraean,  Persian  and  Cim- 
merian as  the  aunts  of  a  new  Sibyl  to  whom  he  gave  the  name 
of  Cassandra. 

The  shepherdess  Cassandra  is  courted  by  Solomon,  but  she 
brusquely  repels  his  advances.  Her  objections  to  him  are 
not  personal ;  they  are  based,  she  claims,  upon  the  unhappy  lot 
of  her  married  friends.  Her  aunts  solicitously  insist  that  the 
match  would  be  advantageous  to  her,  but  neither  their  argu- 
ments nor  the  explanation  of  Moses,  paraphrased  from  the 
first  chapter  of  Genesis,  that  marriage  is  a  sacrament,  shakes 
her  preference  for  single  blessedness. 

Cassandra  finally  declares  why  she  will  wed  no  man.  She 
believes  she  is  the  virgin  in  whom  the  Son  of  God  will  become 
incarnate.  The  Sibyls  confirm  this  prophecy  of  Christ's  birth, 
but  Isaiah  objects  that  the  humility  prophesied  of  the  Virgin 
Mother  ill  accords  with  Cassandra's  presumption.  The  Ery- 
thraean Sibyl  recites  a  version  of  the  Fifteen  Signs  of  Judg- 
ment Day,  which  well  illustrates  Vicente's  critical  spirit  in 
using  medieval  material,  and  thereupon  curtains  are  drawn 
aside  disclosing  the  Nativity  scene.  Four  angels  sing  a  dainty 
little  carol,  the  Sibyls  and  Prophets  worship  the  Christ  Child, 
and  the  play  ends  with  a  charming  cantiga  set  to  music  by 
the  author  himself. 

1  See  Georgina  'G.  King,  The  Play  of  the  Sibyl  Cassandra.  Bryn 
Mawr  Press,  1922. 


RELIGIOUS  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  RUED  A         45 

This  play  offers  to  us  the  first  example  of  religious  sym- 
bolism in  the  drama  that  attained  well-nigh  perfection  at  the 
hands  of  Calderon  de  la  Barca.  In  spite  of  the  disparate  ele- 
ments of  which  it  is  composed,  it  has  real  dramatic  interest, 
but  long  after  the  details  of  the  plot  are  forgotten,  our  memory 
is  haunted  by  the  lovely  lyrics  that  constitute  its  chief  charm. 

In  the  Auto  dos  quatro  tempos,  written  like  the  preceding, 
in  Castilian,  and  performed  at  Lisbon  before  King  Manuel  at 
Christmas  matins,  the  Christmas  play  is  almost  entirely  se- 
cularized. It  opens  with  the  arrival  of  a  seraph,  arch-angel 
and  angels  at  the  manger  where  they  sing  a  part  of  the  Te 
Deum  in  praise  of  the  Christ  Child.  Winter  then  appears 
weaving  his  complaints  of  cold  and  rain  like  a  chaplet  for  al 
dainty  little  popular  song,  a  few  lines  of  which  are  sung  at 
the  end  of  each  strophe.  Spring  then  presents  herself  sing- 
ing in  the  same  fashion  one  of  Vicente's  most  charming  lyrics 
that  presents  with  rare  beauty  popular  motifs.  She  welcomes 
the  green  valleys  and  meadows  and  the  reign  of  Cupid  that 
attends  the  renewal  of  life.  The  gaunt  figure  of  Summer 
follows,  exhausted  by  three  months  of  heat  and  thirst  and 
drought  that  have  caused  all  living  things  to  wither.  Autumn 
also  joins  the  group  and  Jupiter  indulges  in  a  long  monologue 
in  which  he  prophesies  that  the  gods  of  Greece  and  Rome 
will  be  henceforth  without  honor  and  calls  upon  the  Seasons 
to  accompany  him  to  worship  the  new-born  Creator.  On 
reaching  the  manger,  they  sing  a  French  camtiga,  and  present 
their  homage  and  gifts  to  the  Christ  Child.  David,  dressed 
as  a  shepherd,  recites  farced  versions  of  parts  of  the  one 
hundred  and  twenty-first,  eighty-fourth  and  fifty-first  Psalms 
and  the  canticle  "  Benedicite  omnia  opera,"  and  the  play  ends 
with  the  chanting  of  the  Te  Deum. 

These  latter  portions  of  the  play  give  it  a  liturgical  char- 
acter that  is  not  found  in  any  Christmas  play  written  in  Spain 
at  that  period.  At  the  same  time  the  sacred  element  merely 
affords  a  setting  for  a  version  of  the  debat  of  the  seasons,* 

lSee  Biadene,  Carmina  de  mensibus,  etc.,  Studi  di  filologia  romanza, 
vol.  ix,  8iff. 


46  SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

which  is  related  to  the  medieval  Confiictus  hiemis  et  veris, 
and  goes  back  ultimately  to  the  folk-dances  that  celebrated  the 
death  of  Winter. 

Of  much  less  consequence  is  the  Auto  da  Fe,  written  in 
Castilian  and  Portuguese,  and  performed  at  Almeirim  be- 
fore King  Manuel  at  Christmas  matins,  1510.  Two  shep- 
herds are  dumbfounded  by  the  magnificence  of  the  Christ- 
mas festival  and  make  amusing  conjectures  concerning  some 
of  the  unfamiliar  things  they  see.  The  allegorical  figure  of 
Faith  then  appears,  who  first  must  explain  to  them  that 
Faith  is  love  of  God  and  of  his  Church,  a  belief  in  what  we 
do  not  see  and  love  for  what  we  do  not  understand.  In 
answer  to  their  query,  Faith  explains  why  the  Cross  is  sacred, 
and  one  of  the  shepherds  remarks  that  when  they  need  rain 
in  his  village,  men  and  women  take  out  a  cross  crying  "  Ora 
pro  nubes,  ora  pro  nubes,"  but  the  rain  does  not  come.  Other 
explanations  of  the  Redemption  are  given,  and  the  play  ends 
with  a  song. 

Three  other  Christmas  plays  by  Vicente,  the  Auto  pastoril 
portuguez,  Auto  da  feira  and  Auto  da  Mofina  Mendes,  are 
composed  entirely  in  Portuguese  and  therefore  fall  outside 
the  limits  of  this  study,  but  even  a  reading  of  the  plays  already 
discussed,  all  of  which  belong  to  the  early  years  of  the  poet's 
activity,  affords  abundant  evidence  of  Vicente's  progress  in 
dramatic  art.  An  apprentice  in  the  Monologo  do  vaqueiro, 
he  successfully  essayed  dialogue  and  homely  scenes  of  shep- 
herds in  the  Auto  pastoril  castelhano  and  Auto  dos  Reis 
magos.  Greater  independence  of  Scriptural  material  with 
music  and  poetic  fancy  is  found  in  the  Auto  da  Sibilla  Cas- 
sandra and  Auto  dos  quatro  tempos. 

The  question  naturally  presents  itself  whether  this  pro- 
gress was  due  entirely  to  Vicente's  creative  genius,  or  whether 
influences  from  abroad  directed  this  development.  No  one 
can  deny  some  similarity  between  the  first  Christmas  and 
Epiphany  plays  of  Vicente  and  the  Christmas  eclogues  of 
Encina  and  Fernandez.  At  the  same  time,  it  is  even  more 


RELIGIOUS  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  RUED  A 


47 


evident  that  there  is  no  relationship  between  the  Auto  dd 
Sibilla  Cassandra  or  the  Auto  dos  quatro  tempos  and  the 
works  of  the  Salamancan  poets.  Vicente's  references  to 
French  songs  might  be  regarded  as  a  clue  to  the  source  of 
his  inspiration,  but  the  French  Christmas  plays  of  that  time 
did  not  possess  the  lyrical  qualities  that  constitute  the  chief 
innovations  in  the  Auto  da  Sibilla  Cassandra  and  Auto  dos 
quatro  tempos.  It  seems  more  logical  to  suppose  that  in  writ- 
ing these  plays,  he  took  well-known  medieval  materials  and 
adapted  them  for  the  purposes  of  a  Court  entertainment, 
similar  in  spirit  to  the  maskings  and  disguisings  that  were 
presented  at  Paris  and  other  Courts,  and  added  sufficient 
sacred  material  to  make  the  play  suitable  for  representation  at 
a  religious  festival. 

The  traditions  of  the  Spanish  religious  drama  were  carried 
to  Italy  in  the  early  years  of  the  sixteenth  century  by  Torres 
Naharro,  who  was  born  near  the  town  of  Badajoz.  His  Dialogs 
del  nascimiento  was  written  at  Rome  between  1512  and 
1517,  in  which  year  it  was  published  with  his  other  plays. 
The  prologue  is  recited  by  a  shepherd  who  gives  a  humor- 
ous and  none  too  decent  account  of  his  courtship  and  mar- 
riage, and  concludes  with  a  brief  summary  of  the  argument. 

Two  Spanish  pilgrims  meet  on  Christmas  Eve  on  their  way 
to  Rome,  one  coming  from  Jerusalem  and  the  other  from 
Santiago.  The  latter,  in  reply  to  a  question,  extols  with 
patriotic  ardour  the  success  of  Spanish  arms  which  merit  the 
pen  of  a  Vergil  or  a  Lucan.  His  companion  is  weary  of  in- 
cessant warfare  which  ill  accords  with  the  angel's  message  of 
peace  on  earth  and  good-will  to  men,  and  narrates  incidents 
of  the  Nativity,  some  of  which  are  derived  from  the  Legenda 
Aurea.  They  then  discuss  theological  questions,  such  as  the 
relative  gravity  of  the  sin  of  Adam  and  Lucifer,  and  the 
reason  why  the  Son  was  chosen  as  a  Redeemer  instead  of 
some  other  person  of  the  Trinity.  The  prophecies  are  re- 
lated in  some  detail,  and  also  the  Annunciation,  which  bears 
a  strong  resemblance  to  Gil  Vicente's  version  of  the  same 


48  SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

scene  in  the  Auto  da  Mofina  Mendes  (1534).  This  pious  dis- 
cussion is  interrupted  by  two  shepherds,  skilled  in  sophistry, 
who  ask  the  pilgrims  absurd  questions  and  riddles.1  They 
then  engage  in  a  contest  of  abuse,2  and  the  play  ends  with 
a  sacrilegious  farced  version  of  the  Ave  marls  Stella,  which 
seems  to  reproduce  at  least  the  burlesque  spirit  of  the  Boy 
Bishop  revels. 

The  play  is  lacking  in  dramatic  interest  because  the  author 
aims  to  commemorate  rather  than  represent  the  Nativity.  In 
common  with  the  plays  of  Fernandez,  it  has  a  marked  theo>- 
logical  tone  and  resembles  the  latter's  Egloga  o  farsa  del 
n-ascimiento  in  the  absurd  questions  asked  the  pilgrims  by 
the  shepherds.  Compared  with  the  dramatic  power  of  some 
of  Torres  Naharro's  secular  plays,  this  composition  is  only 
an  interesting  curiosity.  The  author  makes  an  interesting 
modification  in  the  coplas  de  arte  mayor  which  was  followed 
by  Vicente  in  his  Auto  de  historia  de  Deos  and  Auto 
da  feira* 

The  influence  of  Encina  and  Fernandez  is  still  more  evident 
in  the  Egloga  en  loor  de  la  natividad  de  nuestro  Senor  of 
Hernan  Lopez  de  Yanguas,  probably  written  before  1518.* 
Four  shepherds  have  heard  the  news  of  Christ's  birth  and 
discuss  like  theologians  the  fulfilment  of  the  prophecies.  We 
do  not  need  the  marginal  notes  carefully  inserted  by  the 
author  to  recognize  his  dependence  upon  the  Old  and  New 
Testament,  including  such  unpromising  dramatic  material  as 
the  Liber  generationis,  which  is  translated  in  full.  They  offer 
their  gifts  to  the  Virgin,  and  the  play  ends  with  a  song  and 

1For  certain  of  these  riddles,  see  Rudolph  Schevill,  Some  Forms  of 
the  Riddle  Question,  University  of  California  Publications  in  Modern 
Philology,  vol.  ii,  1911. 

*For  the  contest  in  abuse  found  in  so  many  sixteenth-century  plays, 
see  J.  P.  W.  Crawford,  Echarse  pullas.  A  Popular  Form  of  Tenzone, 
Romanic  Review,  vol.  vi,  1915. 

3  Menendez  y  Pelayo's  introduction  to  the  Propalladia  of  Torres 
Naharro,  vol.  ii,  p.  xc. 

4Kohler,  Sieben  spanische  dramatische  Eklogen,  pp.  153-55. 


RELIGIOUS  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  RUED  A         49 

dance.  By  reason  of  its  unrelieved  didacticism,  this  play  is 
one  of  the  most  wearisome  composed  in  Spain  in  the  sixteenth 
century.1 

The  Farsa  nuevamente  trobada  of  Fernando  Diaz  shows  no> 
advance  over  the  'Christmas  plays  of  Encina  and  Fernandez. 
Composed  like  the  preceding  one  in  coplas  de  arte  mayor,  it 
presents  a  quarrel  between  two  shepherds,  which  is  followed 
by  the  appearance  of  an  angel,  who  announces  to  them  that 
Christ  is  born.  The  angel  then  assumes  the  role  of  a  theo- 
logian, and  explains  in  detail  the  doctrine  of  Redemption. 
The  shepherds  offer  their  gifts  at  the  manger  and  the  play 
ends  with  a  song.  The  only  edition  that  has  been  preserved 
bears  the  date  1554,  but  its  primitive  character  allows  us  to 
date  it,  in  all  probability,  about  the  year  I52O.2 

The  Farsa  a  honor  y  reverencia  del  glorioso  nascimiento  de 
nuestro  Redemptor  y  de  la  Virgen  gloriosa  madre  suya  of  Pero 
Lopez  Ranjel,  printed  about  1530,  shows  little  advance  over  the 
Christmas  plays  of  Encina.  Other  plays  belonging  to  this 
early  period  that  deal  with  incidents  of  the  Christmas  story 
are  the  Auto  nuevo  del  santo  nascimiento  de  Cristo  nuestro 
Senor  by  Juan  Pastor,  printed  at  Seville  in  1528,  and  the  Auto 
de  como  San  Juan  fue  concebido  y  ansi  mesmo  el  nacimientot 
de  San  Juan  by  Esteban  Martinez,  published  at  Burgos  in  the 
same  year.  To  this  period  also  belongs  an  Incarnation  play 
entitled  Triaca  del  alma  by  Fr.  Marcelo  de  Lebrixa,  with  only 
female  roles  and  written  for  performance  by  nuns.3 

The  outstanding  figure  in  the  Spanish  religious  drama  of 
the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth  century  is  Diego  Sanchez  de 
Badajoz  (or  Diego  Sanchez),  whose  twenty-eight  plays  were 
published  posthumously  by  his  nephew  about  the  year  1554 
with  the  title  Recopilacion  en  metro.  Little  is  known  of  his 
life,  save  that  he  was  curate  at  Talavera,  near  Badajoz,  from 

JA  fragment  of  a  play  of  similar  tone  was  published  by  Cotarelo  y 
Mori  in  the  Revista  espanola  de  Literatura,  Historia  y  Arte,  vol.  i,  1901. 
'Kohler,  op.  cit.,  p.  181. 
1  Schack,  op.  cit.,  vol.  i,  p.  334-36. 


£0     SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

1533  to  1549  and  died  in  the  latter  year  or  the  year  following. 
His  dramatic  activity  extended  approximately  from  1525  to 
1547.  His  plays,  all  of  which  bear  the  name  farsa,  are  dif- 
ficult to  classify.  It  appears  from  internal  evidence  that 
twelve  of  these  were  performed  on  Christmas,  ten  on  Corpus 
Christi  day,  two  on  Saints'  days  and  four  on  other  occasions. 

Limiting  ourselves  for  the  present  to  the  Christmas  plays, 
only  two,  namely,  the  Farsa  de  la  Salutation  and  Farsa  de  los 
doctores,  deal  with  incidents  of  the  Christmas  story.  The 
first  presents  with  the  simplicity  of  the  Gospel  accounts  the 
Annunciation  to  the  Virgin;  the  second  shows  the  youthful 
Jesus  teaching  the  doctors  in  the  Temple,  with  the  addition  of 
incongruous  elements. 

Theology  is  more  prominent  in  the  Farsa  de  la  Natividad 
and  Farsa  teologal.  In  the  former,  a  malicious  shepherd) 
stages  a  quarrel  between  a  parish  priest  and  a  friar  regarding 
the  relative  joy  of  the  Virgin  at  the  Nativity  or  Incarnation, 
which  is  settled  by  the  allegorical  figure  of  Learning.  This 
dispute  seems  to  be  a  burlesque  of  scholastic  argumentation  in 
general,  and  probably  refers  to  some  over- animated  contro- 
versy with  which  the  clergy  of  Badajoz  was  familiar.1  In  the 
Farsa  teologal,  the  ignorance  of  a  shepherd}  offers  an  op- 
portunity to  a  theologian  to  explain  at  length  the  doctrine 
of  Redemption.  With  the  serious  part  of  the  play  out  of  the 
way,  the  author  was  left  free  to  entertain  the  audience  with  a 
comic  scene  of  rude  horse-play  in  which  he  excelled.  The* 
shepherd  devises  a  sort  of  jack  o'  lantern  which  frightens  a! 
young  negress.  A  soldier  then  enters,  boasting  of  his  prow- 
ess on  many  a  battle-field,  but  he  faints  away  when  he  sees 
the  jack  o'  lantern,  and  on  recovering  his  senses,  calls  for  a 
priest  to  hear  his  confession.  When  the  priest  arrives,  the 
braggart  has  recovered  somewhat  his  composure  and  explains 
that  his  weakness  has  been  caused  by  severe  toothache.  A 
French  dentist  is  summoned  who  is  led  by  professional  zeal  to 

*J.  Lopez  Prudencio,  Diego  Sanchez  de  Badajoz,  Madrid,  1915,  pp. 
151-57. 


RELIGIOUS  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  RUED  A          §i 

extract  not  only  one,  but  two  perfectly  sound  teeth  before  the 
soldier's  pleas  for  mercy  are  heeded.  The  incident  is  worked 
out  with  such  completeness  that  we  must  regard  it  as  a  primi- 
tive paso,  and  in  its  dramatic  interest,  it  is  entitled  to  rank 
with  the  best  short  compositions  of  Lope  de  Rueda. 

Two  of  the  plays  of  Sanchez  de  Badajoz  performed  at 
Christmas,  namely,  the  Farsa  de  Salomon  and  Farsa  de  Tamar, 
deal  with  Old  Testament  themes.  The  first  presents  the 
familiar  story  of  the  decision  rendered  by  Solomon  in  a  dis- 
pute between  two  women  regarding  the  ownership  of  a  child, 
which  is  explained  by  a  friar  according  to  the  interpretation 
of  St.  Augustine.  The  scene  that  follows  shows  that  the 
ignorant  shepherd  was  sometimes  able  to  protect  himself  when 
imposed  upon.  A  friar  tells  him  that  every  good  Christian 
should  chastise  himself  in  order  to  become  pure  of  heart. 
The  shepherd  acts  at  once  upon  this  advice,  undresses  and 
gives  himself  a  good  thrashing.  Then  the  friar  tells  him  that 
he  was  joking,  but  the  shepherd  prophesies  that  their  roles  may 
be  reversed,  and  makes  good  his  promise  for  he  gives  the* 
friar  a  sound  flogging  in  return.  The  Farsa  de  Tamar  treats 
a  salacious  episode  from  Genesis,  and  ends,  strangely  enough, 
with  the  announcement  of  the  birth  of  Christ. 

Owing  to  their  use  of  allegory,  four  of  the  plays  performed 
at  Christmas,  namely,  the  Farsa  moral,  Farsa  militar,  Farsa 
rational  del  libre  albedrio  and  Farsa  del  juego  de  canas,  may 
be  classified  as  Moralities.  The  Farsa  moral  combines  the 
defeat  of  Wickedness  by  the  Cardinal  Virtues,  Job's  reward 
for  his  confidence  in  God's  mercy,  the  madness  of  Nebuchad- 
nezzar and  the  final  victory  over  Wickedness  as  a  consequence 
of  the  birth  of  Jesus.  One  of  the  best  plays  of  Sanchez  de 
Badajoz  is  the  Farsa  militar  which  presents  a  friar  who,  after 
successfully  resisting  the  temptations  of  Lucifer,  World  and 
Flesh,  falls  a  victim  by  reason  of  an  insidious  appeal  to  his 
vanity  and  ambition,  and  ultimately  vanquishes  his  enemies 
by  confession,  contrition  and  penitence.  It  contains  a  paso 
which  recalls  Timoneda's  Passo  de  dos  ciegos  y  un  mofo,  and 


cj2  SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

ends  with  a  scene  in  which  the  inability  of  a  deaf  man  to 
understand  the  announcement  of  Christ's  birth  furnishes  the 
chief  comic  element.  An  alternative  ending  is  also  given  in 
the  printed  version  in  which  there  is  a  reference  to  the  battle 
of  Muhlberg  in  1547.  The  play  does  not  appear  to  be  anti- 
clerical in  spirit,  but  is  rather  a  warning  that  even  the  most 
virtuous  must  be  constantly  on  their  guard  against  temptation. 
Theological  abstractions  are  carried  to  the  point  of  dullness 
in  the  Farsa  rational  del  libre  albedria,  in  which  Free  Will, 
after  a  narrow  escape  from  the  wiles  of  Sensuality,  is  wedded 
to  Reason.  The  Farsa  del  juego  de  canas  is  a  Prophet's  play, 
treated  in  the  form  of  fantastic  allegory  with  a  delightful 
lyrical  spirit  which  may  be  derived  from  Gil  Vicente.  The 
Farsa  de  la  ventera  is  a  secular  farce  with  only  the  slightest 
relation  to  Christmas.  This  little  play  gives  evidence  of  the 
author's  intimate  knowledge  of  picaresque  types  and  of  his 
ability  to  construct  a  comic  scene  with  real  dramatic  interest. 

Each  of  these  plays  of  Sanchez  de  Badajoz  is  preceded  by 
a  prologue,  recited  by  a  shepherd  who  greets  the  audience  in 
a  bantering  air,  and  occasionally  introduces  the  first  character 
with  a  summary  of  the  argument.  At  times  he  boasts  of  his 
skill  in  sports,  games  and  music  or  relates  with  salacious  and 
even  obscene  details  some  incident  of  his  domestic  life.  In 
the  prologue  to  the  Farsa  de  Tamar,  the  author's  stern  moral 
attitude  is  shown  in  his  arraignment  of  the  feminine  practice 
of  veiling  the  face,  and  in  the  Farsa  de  Salomon,  the  prologuist 
bitterly  protests  against  selfish  lust  for  gold  and  the  inequali- 
ties between  the  rich  and  poor,  a  subject  that  forms  the  basis 
of  the  same  author's  Farsa  de  la  Fortuna  o  hado.  These  pro- 
logues may  have  been  imitated  from  the  introitos  of  Torres 
Naharro,  but  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  they  represent  an 
independent  outgrowth  of  the  dramatic  monologue  which,  by 
analogy  with  French  literature,  we  may  assume  was  one  of 
the  favorite  forms  of  entertainment  of  the  juglares. 

In  nearly  all  of  these  early  Christmas  plays,  the  shepherds 
have  an  important  role.  Employed  at  first  to  give  a  rustic  set- 


RELIGIOUS  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  RUED  A 


53 


ting  to  the  Nativity  scene,  both  entertainment  and  a  pretext 
for  instruction  were  obtained  from  their  ignorance  of  sacred 
symbols  and  dogma.  In  the  course  of  time,  the  shepherd's 
part  becomes  increasingly  important  as  may  be  seen  in  the 
plays  of  Sanchez  de  Badajoz.  In  the  prologue  to  the  Farsa 
de  la  Natividad,  the  shepherd  says  that  devout  and  profitable 
things  will  be  recited,  and  in  order  "  that  you  may  not  fall 
asleep,  we  shall  tell  you  some  funny  things  at  which  you  may 
laugh ".  This  became  the  shepherd's  chief  function,  and 
since  his  value  as  a  comic  figure  consisted  chiefly  in  his 
stupidity,  he  was  frequently  designated  as  the  bobo  or  simple. 
Usually  represented  as  a  glutton,  he  has  no  desire  beyond  a 
well-filled  stomach.  He  is  impertinent  and  makes  sport  of 
everything,  sacred  and  profane.  In  demanding  an  explanation 
of  theological  doctrines,  he  serves  as  a  connecting  link  between 
the  audience  and  the  serious  characters,  because  he  looks  at 
everything  from  the  same  standpoint  as  the  humblest  peasant 
among  the  spectators.1 

It  is  a  debatable  question  whether  the  comic  figure  of  the 
shepherd  is  a  logical  outgrowth  of  the*  shepherds'  plays  as  an 
introduction  to  the  Nativity,  or  whether  we  may  see  in  him 
the  influence  of  popular  farce.  There  is  no  question  that  the 
bobo  combined  the  characteristics  of  Maccus  the  fool  and 
Manducus  the  guzzler  of  the  Roman  fabulae  Atellanae,  but 
whether  he  is  their  lineal  descendant  is  difficult  to  determine. 
The  many  references  to  the  fool  or  clown  in  all  the  countries 
of  Western  Europe  during  the  Middle  Ages  lead  us  to  believe 
that  with  the  secularization  of  the  religious  plays,  the  fool 
and  other  popular  entertainers  entered  into  more  dignified 
company  and  found  a  place  for  themselves  in  the  plays  pre- 
sented at  Christmas,  and  later  at  Corpus  Christi  and  other 
festivals. 

In  addition  to  the  shepherd,  other  characters  were  fre- 
quently employed  by  Sanchez  de  Badajoz  for  comic  effect. 

JJ.  P.  W.  Crawford,  The  Pastor  and  Bobo  in  the  Spanish  Religious 
Drama  of  the  Sixteenth  Century,  Romanic  Review,  vol.  i,  1910. 


54 


SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 


As  in  other  countries,  the  devil  appeared  in  many  Spanish 
plays,  conventionally  costumed  with  horns,  tail  and  cloven 
feet,  and  was  brought  to  terms  by  the  bobo  as  in  the  Farsa  de 
los  doctores.  The  braggart  soldier,  who  resembles  somewhat 
the  Plautine  Pyrgopolinices,  but  who  seems  to  be  a  product  of 
Spanish  conditions,  had  a  distinguished  career  in  the  sixteenth 
century  drama,  and  sometimes  appeared  in  'Christmas  plays 
as  in  the  Farsa  teologal.  The  negress  slave,  speaking  an  al- 
most incomprehensible  jargon,  also  became  a  conventional 
comic  figure.  The  futile  effort  of  the  bobo  to  teach  one  of 
these  poor  creatures  the  Creed  in  the  Farsa  teologal  will  be 
long  remembered. 

In  all  these  comic  incidents  the  shepherd  occupies  the  cen- 
tral place,  and  in  time  a  short  farce  with  dramatic  unity  was 
developed  in  the  body  of  a  serious  play.  This  stage  is  reached, 
for  example,  in  the  Farsa  teologal.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
that  these  brief  comic  scenes  contain  the  first  germ  of  the 
POSO  and  that  they  had  a  very  considerable  influence  upon 
the  development  of  comedy.  Their  popularity  was  so  great 
that  they  were  introduced  into  religious  plays  that  had  no 
relationship  with  Christmas,  and  into  the  secular  drama  as  well. 

Judging  from  the  number  of  extant  plays,  Good  Friday  and 
Easter  contributed  less  than  Christmas  to  the  creation  of  the 
religious  drama.  The  earliest  of  such  compositions,  after 
Encina,  is  Lucas  Fernandez's  Auto  de  la  Pasion,  published 
with  his  other  works  in  1514.  Here  St.  Peter,  bitterly  re- 
gretting his  denial  of  Christ,  is  joined  by  St.  Dionysius  of 
Athens,  to  whom  he  relates  the  incidents  of  the  Passion.  St. 
Matthew  adds  further  details  and  the  three  Maries  enter, 
chanting  their  laments  in  the  form  of  a  planctus  of  marked 
liturgical  character.  The  Crucifixion  scene  is  tenderly  des- 
cribed, following  literally  in  many  cases  the  Scriptural  ac- 
count, a  Crucifix  is  displayed  and  all  kneeling  chant  a  stanza 
of  the  Vexilla  Regis.  Jeremiah  mourns  the  suffering-Christ 
in  language  borrowed  in  part  from  Lamentations,  the  Descent 
from  the  Cross  is  narrated,  and  all  kneel  before  the  monument 


RELIGIOUS  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  RUED  A          55 

or  altar  that  represented  the  sepulchre,  singing  in  honor  of 
the  Crucified  One. 

The  liturgical  element  is  more  pronounced  here  than  in  any 
other  Spanish  play.  It  has  little  dramatic  quality,  since  the 
incidents  are  narrated  rather  than  represented,  but  it  is  pleas- 
ing by  reason  of  its  use  of  lyrical  sacred  texts,  the  planctus 
of  the  three  Maries  and  the  considerable  musical  element.  It 
is  almost  certain  that  it  was  performed  in  church  on  Good 
Friday  by  members  of  the  clergy. 

We  also  have  a  primitive  form  of  the  Officium  Peregri- 
norum  in  Pedro  Altamira's  Auto  de  la  aparicion  que  nuestro 
Seiior  Jesucristo  hizo  a  los  discipulos  que  iban  a  Emaus, 
published  at  Burgos  in  1523.  As  its  title  indicates,  it  deals 
with  the  appearance  of  the  Risen  Christ  to  Luke  and  Cleopas, 
as  recorded  by  St.  Luke.  One  Easter  and  three  Passion 
plays  recently  discovered  belong  to  approximately  the  same 
period.1 

It  is  a  noteworthy  fact  that  there  is  scarcely  a  trace  in 
Spain  in  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth  century  of  the  com- 
position of  plays  embracing  in  a  cycle  the  chief  incidents  of 
sacred  story  from  the  Creation  or  the  Fall  of  Lucifer,  such  as 
we  find  in  France  and  England.  This  seems  to  offer  an 
argument  in  favor  of  the  independent  development  of  the 
Spanish  religious  drama.  The  few  extant  plays  written  dur- 
ing that  period  that  treat  Old  Testament  and  New  Testament 
material  may  be  classified  as  independent  Corpus  Christi  com- 
positions. It  is  unfortunate  that  the  seventeen  plays  written 
in  the  early  part  of  the  sixteenth  century  by  Vasco  Diaz  Tanco 
de  Frexenal  for  performance  on  the  Sundays  of  Lent, 
Holy  Thursday,  Good  Friday  and  Easter,  have  not  been  pre- 
served. These  dealt  with  incidents  of  the  Ministry  and  Pas- 
sion of  Christ,  culminating  in  the  Resurrection,  and  are  the 

lRevista  de  Archii'os,  vol.  vii,  1902,  p.  253.  Gil  Vicente's  Dialogo 
sobre  a  Resurreifao,  composed  in  Portuguese,  presents  three  rabbis  who 
discuss  the  news  of  Christ's  Resurrection. 


56     SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

only  evidence  that  we  have  of  such  serial  performances  in 
Lent.1 

The  Assumption  of  the  Virgin  was  celebrated  with  special 
ceremonies  in  many  cities,  but  the  only  extant  Castilian  play 
of  the  first  half  of  the  century  written  to  honor  that  festival 
is  the  Farsa  del  Mundo  y  moral  by  Hernan  Lopez  de  Yanguas.21 
Here  the  shepherd  Appetite,  who  represents  mankind,  enters 
the  service  of  World  on  the  promise  of  receiving  honours  and 
untold  wealth.  A  hermit  exposes  the  snares  that  World  has 
laid  for  the  poor  shepherd  and  bids  him  enter  the  service  of 
Faith,  if  he  wishes  to  be  saved  after  death.  Appetite,  thor- 
oughly frightened  over  his  narrow  escape,  promises  to  do  so 
and  tells  World  very  plainly  that  he  will  have  nothing  further 
to  do  with  him.  World  is  obliged  to  admit  his  defeat  and 
Faith  describes  the  court  of  Heaven  on  the  occasion  of  the 
Assumption  of  the  Virgin.  In  that  celestial  multitude  were 
Ferdinand  and  Isabella  who  gloried  in  their  victories  over  the 
infidels  and  prophesied  that  their  grandson,  Charles,  would 
carry  the  faith  to  Asia.  The  poetic  inspiration  of  Lopez  de 
Yanguas  did  not  equal  his  pious  zeal  and  his  didacticism  and 
abuse  of  classical  allusions  are  often  wearisome. 

It  is  probable  that  the  festivals  of  certain  Saints  were  oc- 
casionally celebrated  by  the  performance  of  appropriate  plays, 
but  the  only  extant  examples  of  these  in  the  first  half  of  the 
century  are  the  Farsa  de  Santa  Barbara  and  Farsa  de  San 

lFor  the  titles,  see  the  prologue  to  his  Jardin  del  alma  cristiana 
(i552))  published  in  Gallardo's  Ensayo  de  una  biblioteca,  vol.  ii,  cols. 
785-86.  Since  the  author  refers  jokingly  to  his  advanced  age  in  this 
prologue,  and  states  that  these  plays  were  composed  in  his  youth,  we 
are  justified  in  ascribing  their  composition  to  approximately  the  first 
decade  of  the  century. 

*The  first  edition  is  of  1524,  but  it  was  probably  written  between  1516 
and  1520.  See  Cotarelo  y  Mori,  Revista  de  Archives,  vol.  vii,  1902, 
pp.  259-60  and  Kohler,  op.  cit.,  pp.  150-53.  An  incomplete  Valencian 
play  on  the  Assumption  and  Death  of  the  Virgin  of  the  beginning  of 
the  fifteenth  century  has  also  been  preserved.  See  H.  Merimee,  op.  cit., 
P?.  45-57- 


RELIGIOUS  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  RUED  A         57 

Pedro  of  Sanchez  de  Badajoz.  The  first  was  doubtless  per- 
formed at  Badajoz  where  Santa  Barbara  was  held  in  especial 
devotion.  After  the  prologue,  the  figures  of  Christ  and 
Santa  Barbara  are  disclosed.  An  angel  relates  the  patient 
suffering  and  heroic  death  of  the  young  martyr  for  the  sake 
of  her' Christian  faith,  while  a  devil,  who  acts  as  prosecutor, 
declares  that  she  deserves  condemnation  because  she  was! 
born  of  pagan  parents.  A  shepherd  comments  wittily  upon 
the  arguments  presented  and  affirms  that  the  women  he  knows 
are  not  capable  of  such  sacrifice  as  she  had  shown.  Finally  he 
loses  patience  with  the  devil  and  drives  him  away.  Christ 
then  places  upon  the  maiden's  b^d  a  crown  of  gold,  one  of 
roses  and  one  of  lilies,  and  the  play  concludes  with  a  villancico 
in  praise  of  Christ.  The  Farsa  de  San  Pedro  has  as  its  central 
point  the  incident  related  by  St.  Matthew  concerning  the  mira- 
culous fish  that  should  yield  the  tribute-money  that  was  ex- 
acted from  Jesus  by  a  tax-collector. 

We  have  already  seen  that  by  the  year  1360  the  representa- 
tion of  certain  sacred  scenes  formed  a  part  of  the  Corpus 
Christi  procession  at  Gerona.  Documents  for  the  Castilian- 
speaking  portions  of  the  Peninsula  are  both  of  later  date  and 
less  specific,  but  we  can  say  that  throughout  Spain  the  Cor- 
pus festival  had  acquired  considerable  importance  by  the 
latter  half  of  the  fifteenth  century.  Until  the  middle  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  the  duty  of  organizing  and  paying  for  the 
cars  or  pageants  upon  which  these  scenes  were  represented 
generally  fell  to  the  lot  of  the  various  guilds,  and  it  is  probable 
that  the  different  scenes  were  distributed  in  such  a  way  as  to! 
bear  some  relation  to  the  craft  that  presented  it.1  It  is  dif- 
ficult to  determine  from  the  available  documents  at  what 

1For  Seville,  see  Jose  Sanchez  Arjona,  Noticias  referentes  a  los  anales 
del  teatro  en  Sevilla,  p.  9.  The  municipality  assumed  this  function 
somewhat  later  at  Valladolid ;  see  N.  A.  Cortes,  El  teatro  en  Valladolid, 
Boletin  de  la  Real  Academia  Espanola,  vol.  iv,  1917,  pp.  600-606.  On 
the  manner  of  presenting  Corpus  plays,  see  H.  A.  Rennert,  The  Spanish 
Stage  in  the  Time  of  Lope  de  Vega,  New  York,  1909,  chap.  xiv. 


^g     SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

period  these  Corpus  Christi  shows  passed  from  the  stage  of 
tableaux  vivants  to  plays  with  dialogue  and  action. 

It  is  likewise  a  debatable  question  whether  the  scenes  repre- 
sented in  the  pageants  of  the  early  Corpus  processions  had  any 
relationship  with  the  festival  itself,  and  also  whether  the 
first  Corpus  plays  contained  any  reference  to  the  Eucharist.1' 
The  scenes  represented  on  Corpus  Christi  day  at  Gerona  in 
1360,  namely,  the  sacrifice  of  Isaac  and  the  dream  and  sale 
of  Jacob,  seem  to  have  been  chosen  in  order  to  explain  the 
symbolical  meaning  of  the  Eucharist.  The  connection  is  less 
clear  in  the  case  of  the  subjects  of  pageants  that  we  find  in 
later  documents,  but  it  is  likely  that  couplets  referring  to  the 
Eucharist,  of  which  there  are  a  number  of  examples  in  the 
Cancioneros  of  the  fifteenth  century,  may  have  been  recited 
to  interpret  any  sacred  scene.  It  is  true  that  Vicente's  Auto 
de  S.  Martinho,  usually  regarded  as  the  earliest  auto  sacra- 
mental in  Spanish,  was  performed  on  Corpus  Christi  day  in 
1504  and  contains  no  reference  to  that  festival,  but  since  the 
play  is  incomplete,  it  does  not  offer  conclusive  evidence  that 
a  play  totally  unrelated  in  subject  to  the  Eucharist  might  be 
used  for  a  Corpus  celebration. 

At  all  events,  the  earliest  extant  Corpus  Christi  play  written 
by  a  Spanish  author  deals  exclusively  with  the  Eucharist. 
This  is  the  Farsa  sacramental  of  Hernan  Lopez  de  Yanguas, 
first  published  about  the  year  1520.  Here  with  the  setting  of 
a  primitive  Christmas  play,  after  the  manner  of  Encina  and 
Fernandez,  the  significance  of  the  Eucharist  is  explained  by 
an  angel  to  four  shepherds,  Jerome,  Augustine,  Gregory  and 
Ambrose.  We  find  here  the  tendency  toward  allegory,  sym- 
bolism and  theology  that  was  destined  to  play  so  important  a 
part  in  the  development  of  the  auto  sacramental.  Closely 
resembling  the  foregoing  is  an  anonymous  Farsa  sacramental, 
composed  in  coplas  de  arte  mayor  and  printed  in  1521.  This 
presents  a  conversation  between  three  shepherds  and  the  alle- 


question  is  discussed  by  Cotarelo  y  Mori,  Remsta  de  Archives, 
vol.  vii,  1902,  pp.  251-52,  and  by  Lopez  Prudencio,  op.  cit.,  pp.  256-60. 


RELIGIOUS  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  RUED  A         59 

gorical  figure  of  Faith,  who  explains  to  them  the  doctrine  of 
Redemption  and  the  mystery  of  Transubstantiation. 

The  Corpus  Christi  plays  of  Sanchez  de  Badajoz  show  a 
wider  variety  of  material  and  a  notable  advance  in  dramatic 
construction.  Four  of  these,  namely,  the  Farsa  de  Isaac, 
Farsa  de  Abraham,  Farsa  de  Moysen  and  Farsa  del  rey  David, 
treat  Old  Testament  stories  that  have  a  close  symbolical  re- 
lationship with  Christ's  sacrifice.  The  first  presents  the  sub- 
stitution of  Jacob  for  Esau  in  receiving  Isaac's  blessing,  and 
ends  with  the  explanation  that  the  blessing  bestowed  upon 
Esau  represents  the  freedom  from  the  supremacy  of  Judah 
given  to  all  peoples  by  the  coming  of  the  Messiah.  The 
Farsa  de  Abraham  is  an  insignificant  play  containing  a  sym- 
bolical explanation  of  the  Eucharist.  In  the  Farsa  de  Moy- 
sen, St.  Paul  interprets  the  symbolical  relationship  of  portions 
of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  and  expounds  the  meaning 
of  the  Corpus  festival.  The  Farsa  del  Rey  David  establishes 
the  symbolical  connection  between  David  and  Christ. 

The  rubric  of  the  Farsa  de  Santa  Susana  informs  us  that 
the  play  was  performed  on  a  car  that  represented  a  garden. 
The  introit  or  prologue  is  of  unusual  interest  because  it  is 
in  dialogue  form.  A  shepherd  and  gardener  engage  in  a 
dispute  regarding  the  relative  value  of  idleness  and  industry. 
The  shepherd  presents  eloquent  claims  in  favor  of  indolence, 
while  a  gardener  extols  the  benefits  of  labor  and  assails 
slander  and  gossip  as  fruits  of  idleness.  In  the  course  of  his 
argument,  he  makes  a  defense  of  his  own  trade,  which  closely 
resembles  the  form  of  loa  that  was  frequently  used  in  the 
time  of  Agustin  de  Rojas.  The  play  proper  is  intended  to 
illustrate  the  evils  of  slander  and  therefore  has  organic  con- 
nection with  the  prologue.  The  material  is  taken  from  the 
familiar  story  told  in  the  thirteenth  book  of  Daniel.  The 
characters  are  vividly  portrayed,  with  an  intensity  rarely 
found  in  these  early  plays,  and  the  interest  is  well  sustained 
through  a  series  of  dramatic  situations. 

A   friar  teaches   the   significance  of  the  Eucharist   in  the 


60     SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

Farsa  del  Santisimo  Sacramento,  which  has  the  same  setting" 
as  the  Christmas  plays  of  Encina  and  Fernandez.  The  viru- 
lent attack  of  the  shepherd  upon  the  friar  should  not  be  re- 
garded as  evidence  of  an  anti-clerical  attitude  on  the  author's 
part,  but  rather  as  inspired  by  a  desire  to  correct  popular  pre- 
judices. The  Farsa  de  la  Iglesia  contains  an  allegorical  de- 
bat  between  Church  and  Synagogue,  and  includes  a  comic 
scene  in  which  a  shepherd  attempts  to  baptize  a  Moor.1  The 
Danza  de  los  Siete  Pecados  represents  the  defeat  of  Adam  by 
the  seven  Deadly  Sins  and  finally  his  realization  of  God's 
mercy  as  revealed  by  the  Eucharist. 

The  Farsa  del  molinero,  Farsa  del  colmenero  and  Farsa  del 
herrero  offer  concrete  proof  of  the  participation  of  the  trade- 
guilds  in  the  Corpus  Christi  plays.  In  each  of  these,  a  eulogy 
or  defense  of  the  particular  trade  forms  the  most  important 
element  and  the  portions  referring  to  the  Eucharist  are  insig- 
nificant. It  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  these  guilds  paid 
for  the  cars  on  which  the  plays  were  performed  and  also  fur- 
nished the  actors.  The  Farsa  del  herrero  contains  a  reference 
to  the  presence  of  the  smiths  in  the  procession. 

It  is  likely  that  most  of  the  plays  of  Sanchez  de  Badajoz 
were  performed  at  Badajoz  in  the  presence  of  the  Cathedral 
Chapter.  It  also  appears  that  the  Farsa  de  la  Iglesia  was  pre- 
sented on  Corpus  Christi  day  at  Seville  in  1560,  and  it  is  likely 
that  the  Farsa  militar  and  Farsa  moral  were  performed  at 
Seville  in  the  following  year  with  the  titles  La  soberbia  y  caida 
de  Lucifer  and  Rey  Nabucdonosor.2 

The  sale  of  Joseph  by  his  envious  brethren  and  the  incidents 
of  his  sojourn  at  the  court  of  Pharaoh,  one  of  the  most  dra- 
matic stories  found  in  the  Old  Testament,  is  the  theme  of  the 
Tragedia  llamada  Josefina  by  Micael  de  Carvajal.  The  ear- 

xThe  conversion  and  baptism  of  a  Moor  are  incidents  found  in  many 
later  plays.  iSee  G.  I.  Dale,  The  Religious  Element  in  the  Comedias  de 
moros  y  cristianos  of  the  Golden  Age,  Washington  University  Studies, 
vol.  vii,  St.  Louis,  1919. 

2  Jose  Sanchez  Arjona,  op.  cit.,  p.  26. 


RELIGIOUS  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  RUED  A          fa 

liest  extant  edition  is  of  the  year  1540,  but  an  edition  of  1535 
is  mentioned  in  the  Registrum  of  Fernando  'Colon  and  there 
is  some  evidence  that  it  was  written  before  1523.  The  name 
of  tragedy  suggests  classical  influence  and  the  chorus  of 
maidens  that  sings  at  the  close  of  each  of  the  four  acts  has  the 
same  source,  but  in  other  respects  the  play  has  little  in  com- 
mon with  classical  tragedy.  An  unusual  feature  in  the  plays 
of  the  time  is  the  prologue  recited  by  Envy,  Furia  infernal, 
which  may  be  classical  in  inspiration  or  may  have  been  sug- 
gested by  the  prologue  to  the  Vendition  de  Joseph  which 
formed  a  part  of  the  Mister e  du  Viel  Testament*  Carvajal 
gives  life  and  dramatic  intensity  to  the  scenes  in  which  he 
describes  the  jealousy  of  Joseph's  brethren,  the  mourning  of 
Jacob  over  the  loss  of  his  son  and  the  passion  of  Potiphar's 
wife.  Its  relationship  with  the  Corpus  festival  is  by  no 
means  clear  and  its  suitability  for  such  an  occasion  may  be 
doubted,  but  its  superiority  to  the  other  Spanish  religious 
plays  of  the  time  cannot  be  questioned. 

The  only  other  extant  Corpus  play  that  can  definitely  be 
assigned  to  this  early  period  is  Sebastian  de  Horozco's  Re- 
presentation de  la  parabola  de  Sant  Mateo,  performed  at 
Toledo  in  1548.  This  dramatic  version  of  the  Parable  of  the 
Vineyard  has  no  apparent  relationship  with  the  Corpus  fes- 
tival and  its  interest  lies  in  the  portrayal  of  characters  taken 
from  every-day  life.  The  two  peasants,  two  ex-soldiers  just 
released  from  Algerian  prisons  and  now  reduced  to  beggary, 
two  starving  solicitors  for  religious  orders,  an  old  countryman 
and  his  dolt  of  a  son  who  are  engaged,  one  after  another,  for 
work  in  the  vineyard,  furnish  a  social  background  which 
seems  to  bespeak  the  unrelieved  misery  of  the  common  people. 

More  important  is  Horozco's  Representation  de  la  historia 
evangelica  del  capitulo  nono  de  Sanct  Joan  which  deals  with 
the  healing  of  a  blind  man  by  Jesus.  In  the  first  scene  we 

*A.  Morel-Fatio,  Romania,  vol.  xv,  1886,  p.  467.  The  play  also  con- 
tains elements  derived  from.  Jewish  traditions.  See  A.  Bonilla  y  San 
Martin,  Las  Bacantes  o  del  origen  del  teatro,  p.  141. 


62  SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

have  virtually  a  dramatization  of  a  part  of  the  first  chapter 
of  Lazarillo  de  Tormes.  A  blind  beggar  accuses  his  guide 
named  Lazarillo  with  pocketing  food  intended  for  himself. 
Lazarillo  has  stowed  something  away,  but  his  master  detects 
it  by  the  odour.  "  It  is  bacon  ",  he  declares,  "  I  smell  it ". 
While  they  are  disputing  over  the  question  of  rations,  Laz- 
arillo allows  him  to  strike  against  the  wall  of  a  house.  When 
the  beggar  cries  out  with  pain,  Lazarillo  says  grimly,  "  Since 
you  smelled  the  bacon,  why  didn't  you  smell  the  corner  ? " 
The  whole  spirit  of  this  scene,  as  well  as  the  verbal  similarity 
of  the  last  words  with  the  "  Olistes  la  longaniza  y  no  el  poste  ?  " 
of  the  novel,  unmistakably  show  the  influence  of  Lazarillo  de 
Tormes  upon  the  play,  or  what  is  less  likely,  the  influence  of 
the  play  upon  the  novel.  The  suggestion  *  that  the  resem- 
blance between  these  two  compositions  must  be  explained  by 
common  authorship  is  interesting,  but  seems  to  lack  sufficient 
evidence.  The  question  of  their  relationship  is  obscure  be- 
cause the  date  of  composition  of  the  play  is  even  more  uncer- 
tain than  that  of  the  novel. 

In  the  rest  of  the  play,  the  picaresque  element  is  less  pro- 
minent. The  beggar  is  led  before  Jesus  who  anoints  his 
eyes  and  promises  that  he  will  recover  his  sight  if  he  will  bathe 
in  the  pool  of  Siloam.  This  is  followed  by  a  comic  scene  to 
which  the  author  gives  the  name  of  entremes,  one  of  the 
earliest  examples  of  the  use  of  this  term  to  denote  a  dra- 
matic composition  inserted  within  a  play.  Here  an  impecu- 
nious lawyer  is  introduced  who  insists  on  taking  all  his  client's 
money  as  a  retaining  fee  and  for  various  expenses.  The 
beggar  returns  with  his  sight  restored  and  falling  upon  his 
knees,  worships  the  Saviour. 

1  Julio  Cejador  y  Frauca,  Historia  de  la  lengua  y  literatura  castellana, 
vol.  ii,  pp.  238-250.  On  the  relationship  between  these  two  compositions 
see  also  Cotarelo  y  Mori,  El  Ucenciado  Sebastian  de  Horo_zco  y  sus 
obras,  Madrid,  1916,  pp.  40-44,  and  the  notes  of  Charles  P.  Wagner  to 
Louis  How's  English  translation  of  Lazarillo  de  Tormes,  New  York, 
1917,  PP-  131-32. 


RELIGIOUS  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  RUED  A         63 

We  must  return  once  more  to  Portugal  and  to  Gil  Vicente 
to  find  the  most  important  morality  play  composed  in  the 
Peninsula  in  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth  century.  His 
trilogy  of  the  Three  Boats,  performed  in  1516  or  1517,  1518 
and  1519  respectively,  combine  the  spirit  of  Lucian  and  the 
medieval  Dance  of  Death.  The  Auto  da  barca  do  Inferno, 
written  in  Portuguese,  presents  in  turn  a  nobleman,  usurer, 
peasant,  shoemaker,  friar,  bawd,  Jew,  magistrate,  lawyer,  thief 
and  four  knights  who  are  claimed  by  Death  as  passengers  on 
the  boat  about  to  set  sail  for  Hell.  Each  claims  the  right  to 
be  saved,  but  all  are  rejected  except  the  simple-hearted 
peasant  and  the  four  knights  who  had  fallen  for  the  cause 
of  Christ  on  African  battle-fields,  and  to  these  latter  the 
poet  pays  eloquent  tribute.  The  figure  of  inexorable  Death 
who  grimly  lays  bare  the  souls  of  his  victims,  unscrupulously 
exposing  their  meanness,  greed,  deceit  and  lust,  is  a  powerful 
conception  unsurpassed  in  the  Peninsular  literatures  in  the 
sixteenth  century.  An  anonymous  Castilian  adaptation  of 
this  play,  which  closely  follows  its  Portuguese  original,  was 
published  at  Burgos  in  1539  with  the  title  Tragicomedia  alego- 
rica  del  Par  ay  so  y  del  Infierno.1 

Less  significant  is  the  Auto  da  barca  do  Purgatorio,  written 
in  Portuguese  and  presented  at  Christmas  matins  of  1518. 
In  the  Auto  da  barca  da  Gloria,  composed  in  Castilian  and 
performed  the  following  year  in  the  presence  of  King  Manuel, 
the  devil  insists  that  Death  shall  bring  him  men  of  high  estate 
who  had  escaped  judgment  in  the  two  previous  plays.  In 
accordance  with  these  orders  a  count,  duke,  king,  emperor, 
bishop,  archbishop,  cardinal  and  pope  are  brought  before  the 
boatman  of  Hell  who  acts  as  prosecutor.  With  uncompromis- 
ing severity  their  sins  are  set  forth  and  the  torments  that 
await  them  are  graphically  described.  They  remind  him  of 

JFor  the  relationship  between  these  two  plays,  see  W.  S.  Hendrix, 
The  Auto  da  Barca  do  Inferno  of  Gil  Vicente  and  the  Spanish  Tragi- 
comedia  del  Parayso  y  del  Infierno,  Modern  Philology,  vol.  xiii,  1916, 
p.  669,  and  a  note  in  Modern  Language  Notes,  vol.  xxxi,  1916,  pp.  432-34. 


64  SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

their  exalted  station  in  life,  and  he  accuses  them  of  having 
been  false  to  the  responsibilities  entrusted  to  them.  Even 
the  pope  is  not  spared,  who  is  charged  with  lust,  pride  and 
simony.  Their  appeals  for  mercy  are  unheeded  by  the  angel 
in  charge  of  the  Paradise  boat,  and  only  by  the  intervention  of 
the  Risen  Christ  at  the  close  of  the  play  can  they  obtain 
salvation.  Gil  Vicente  cannot  truly  be  regarded  as  a  precursor 
of  the  Reformation  in  Portugal,  but  in  these  plays,  as  else- 
where, he  shows  himself  an  ardent  champion  of  social  justice 
and  of  a  high  moral  code  among  all  members  of  the  clergy. 
It  is  possible  that  these  plays  suggested  to  Lope  de  Vega 
certain  features  in  his  auto,  El  viaje  del  alma. 

The  influence  of  the  medieval  Dance  of  Death  is  found  again 
in  the  anonymous  Coplas  de  la  Muerte  como  llama  a  un  po- 
deroso  cavalier o,  printed  about  the  year  1530.  An  analogous 
conception  is  seen  in  Sanchez  de  Badajoz's  Farsa  de  la  Muerte, 
in  which  an  old  man  battles  valiantly  against  Death,  but  with 
a  consciousness  that  his  defeat  means  a  release  from  the 
sorrows  of  this  world  and  the  beginning  of  everlasting  happi- 
ness. 


CHAPTER  IV 

FESTIVAL  AND  PASTORAL  PLAYS 

WE  have  already  seen  that  the  Royal  Entry  and  important 
political  events  were  frequently  celebrated  in  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury by  processions  and  allegorical  pageants.  With  the 
courtly  masquerade  as  a  contributing  factor,  these  developed 
into  festival  plays  by  a  process  analogous  to  that  of  the 
.gradual  transformation  of  the  Corpus  Christi  shows  into  re- 
.  ligious  drama.  One  of  the  earliest  examples  of  this  new  type 
is  an  Egloga  without  title  by  Francisco  de  Madrid,  written  to- 
ward the  end  of  I494,1  and  treating  of  the  invasion  of  Italy 
by  Charles  VIII  and  the  consequent  repudiation  by  Spain  of 
the  treaty  of  alliance  with  France.  The  interlocutors  are 
three  shepherds,  two  of  whom  represent  Charles  VIII  and 
Ferdinand.  We  do  not  know  where  this  play  was  performed, 
nor  on  what  occasion,  but  its  relationship  with  later  composi- 
tions on  political  subjects  is  clear. 

More  elaborate  is  the  Comedia  Trofea  of  Torres  Naharro, 
performed  at  Rome  in  1514  in  honor  of  the  important  mission 
led  by  Tristao  da  Cunha  which  had  been  sent  by  King  Manuel 
to  negotiate  with  Leo  X  for  a  subsidy  to  be  used  in  extending 
Portugal's  colonial  empire  in  Asia.  It  is  not  known  under 
whose  patronage  the  play  was  written  and  performed,  but  it 
is  evident  that  Torres  Naharro  attempted  to  present  the  Por- 
tuguese claims  in  the  most  favorable  light.  Preceded  by  a 
comic  prologue  and  composed  in  five  acts  of  coplas  de  pie 
quebrado,  the  play  consists  of  five  loosely  connected  scenes, 

'Canete,  Tcatro  espanol  del  siglo  XVI,  pp.  50-51,  and  Kohler,  op.  cit., 
PP-  158-59. 

65 


66     SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

almost  totally  devoid  of  action.  The  extravagant  praise  of 
Manuel  the  Fortunate,  recited  by  Fame  in  the  first  act,  and 
the  presentation  by  the  interpreter  of  the  twenty  pagan  kings 
who  joyfully  and  ingenuously  offer  allegiance  to  so  exalted, 
a  monarch,  remind  us  of  earlier  masquerades,  and  an  attempt 
is  made  to  enliven  these  rather  dreary  narrative  portions  by 
the  introduction  of  farcical  scenes  of  shepherds.  It  is  dif- 
ficult to  determine  whether,  for  its  form,  the  author  was  in- 
debted to  Italian  festival  plays  of  the  same  type  as  Sannazzaro's 
//  Triumpho  delta  Fama,  performed  at  Naples  in  1492  to  cele- 
brate the  capture  of  Granada,  or  whether  it  represents  a 
logical  development  of  Spanish  allegorical  pageants  and  mas- 
querades. 

It  is  true,  as  Menendez  y  Pelayo  said,  that  inspiration  was 
lacking  to  Torres  Naharro  in  this  play  and  that  his  failure  was 
as  complete  as  the  shepherd  Mingo's  attempt  to  emulate  Fame 
and  to  fly  with  a  pair  of  borrowed  wings.  At  the  same  time, 
the  Comedia  Trofea  has  a  vast  amount  of  historical  interest. 
It  recalls,  in  the  first  place,  the  details  of  that  mission  which 
was  to  show  in  concrete  form  the  glories  of  the  newly-won 
Portuguese  empire.  In  order  to  win  the  Pope's  favour  and 
support  for  fresh  conquests,  the  famous  Tristao  da  Cunha 
and  his  associates  brought  with  them  as  gifts  trophies  of  price- 
less value,  and  not  the  least  of  the  trophies  was  an  elephant — 
the  first  to  be  seen  in  Italy  for  centuries — dubbed  Annone, 
which  became  a  figure  of  national  importance,  was  painted  by 
Raphael  and  whose  death  three  years  later,  was  mourned  in 
mock-elegies  by  noted  poets  of  the  day. 

The  play  serves,  too,  as  a  record  of  the  glorious  achieve- 
ments of  Portugal  in  its  heroic  age.  Thanks  to  the  impulse 
given  to  geographical  discoveries  by  Prince  Henry  the  Navi- 
gator, one  African  cape  after  another  had  been  doubled  until 
finally  Vasco  da  Gama  crossed  the  Indian  Ocean  and  cast 
anchor  at  'Calicut  in  the  year  1498.  The  right  of  King  Manuel 
to  the  title  "  Lord  of  the  navigation,  conquest  and  commerce 
of  Ethiopia,  Persia,  Arabia  and  India"  was  confirmed  by 


FESTIVAL  AND  PASTORAL  PLAYS  67 

Alexander  VI  in  1502  and  the  marvellous  exploits  of  the 
great  Affonso  d' Albuquerque  between  1507  and  1511  had 
established  Portuguese  supremacy  in  the  East.  We  must  re- 
gard as  literally  true  the  statement  made  by  Fame  in  the  first 
act  that  Manuel  was  lord  of  more  lands  than  Ptolemy  himself 
described.  The  twenty  pagan  kings  who  present  themselves 
to  acknowledge  the  authority  of  Manuel  and  to  request  bap- 
tism were  the  living  witnesses  of  the  Portuguese  conquests  in 
Guinea,  Aden,  Ormuz,  Goa  and  Cochin  China.  Surely  the 
king's  inordinate  vanity  must  have  been  tickled  by  all  this 
flattery,  even  though  as  a  play  the  Comedia  Trofea  is  far  in- 
ferior to  Gil  Vicente's  tragicomedy  entitled  Exhortdfdo  da 
guerra  which  he  had  witnessed  the  year  before  at  Lisbon  to- 
celebrate  the  departure  of  an  expedition  against  Azamor. 

The  eventful  visit  of  Charles  I  to  Valladolid  was  celebrated 
by  the  performance  of  an  Egloga  real  in  December,  1517,  com- 
posed by  a  school-master,  Fernando  de  (or  del)  Prado.1  With 
a  pastoral  setting,  the  play  voices  the  welcome  of  the  various 
estates  of  Castile  and  their  fervent  desire  that  he  succeed  toV 
the  throne,  and  contains  a  prophecy  of  his  future  greatness. 
History  tells  us  that  in  this  first  meeting  with  his  Cortes, 
Charles  did  not  receive  such  unanimous  support  from  his 
subjects.  There  were  many  causes  for  friction  and  dissatis- 
faction and  he  was  not  actually  recognized  as  joint  ruler  with 
his  mother  until  he  had  promised  to  maintain  Castilian  privi- 
leges and  to  exclude  foreigners  from  office.  It  was  further 
stipulated  that  complete  authority  should  pass  to  his  mother, 
Juana,  if  she  should  recover  her  reason.  Written  in  stilted, 
pompous  language  and  with  an  abuse  of  classical  allusions,  the 
play  is  chiefly  of  interest  as  an  attempt  to  glorify  the  future 
Emperor  by  a  biased  presentation  of  facts. 

The  author,  who  signed  himself,  "  bachiller  de  la  Pradilla," 

JFor  a  discussion  of  the  identity  of  Fernando  de  Prado,  see  an  article 
by  Bonilla  y  San  Martin,  Fernan  Lopez  de  Yanguas  y  el  bachiller  de  la 
Pradilla,  published  in  the  Revista  critica  hispano-americana,  vol.  i» 
1915,  pp.  44-51- 


68  SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

was  born  at  Pancorbo  in  the  province  of  Burgos  and  studied 
at  the  University  of  Salamanca  where  he  was  one  of  the  first 
pupils  of  Lebrixa.  After  teaching  his  master's  new  methods 
for  some  time  at  Alcaraz,  he  became  professor  at  Santo 
Domingo  de  la  Calzada.  A  passage  in  the  play  refers  to  a 
composition  written  by  him  at  Vitoria  in  Latin  and  Castilian 
in  honor  of  the  parents  of  Charles,  and  the  rubric  of  our 
play  informs  us  that  it  was  first  composed  in  Latin.  He  also 
is  known  to  have  written  in  Latin  and  Castilian  an  eclogue  in 
honor  of  the  election  of  Juan  Ortega  as  Bishop  of  Calahorra. 

Another  play  which  is  chiefly  of  historical  interest  is  the 
Farsa  sobre  la  felice  nueva  de  la  concordia  e  paz  e  conciertd 
de  nuestro  felicisimo  emperador  semper  augusto,  e  del  cris- 
tianisimo  rey  de  Francia  of  Hernan  Lopez  de  Yanguas,  writ- 
ten to  celebrate  the  Peace  of  Cambray  between  Spain  and 
France  which  was  signed  on  August  15,  1529.  Spain  had 
reason  to  rejoice  over  this  treaty  which  imposed  humiliating 
terms  upon  Francis  I  and  made  Charles  sole  arbiter  of  the 
destinies  of  Italy.  However,  although  the  note  of  rejoicing 
is  present,  the  play  seems  to  have  been  chiefly  inspired  by  a 
profound  sense  of  relief  at  the  cessation  of  warfare.  War, 
who  appears  in  the  guise  of  a  pilgrim,  tries  to  justify  herself, 
but  Peace  and  other  allegorical  figures  paint  in  vivid  colors 
the  havoc  that  she  works  in  the  world,  and  banish  her  from 
the  kingdom.  Satisfaction  over  the  Ladies'  Peace  was  of 
short  duration,  for  Spanish  troops  were  still  fighting  on  other 
battle-fields,  and  only  a  few  years  later  war  once  again  broke 
out  between  Spain  and  France. 

A  good  example  of  the  courtly  masquerade  of  the  period  is 
found  in  the  Farsa  of  Luis  Milan,  performed  at  the  Royal 
Palace  of  Valencia  in  the  presence  of  the  Duke  of  Calabria 
and  Germaine  de  Foix  between  the  years  1530  and  I538,1 
and  first  printed  in  his  book  on  courtly  manners,  entitled  El 
Cortesano,  in  1561.  In  this  little  entertainment,  seven  knights 
of  the  Order  of  St.  John  successfully  engage  in  turn  seven 

1H.  Merimee,  L'Art  dramatique  a  Valencia,  pp.  88-94. 


FESTIVAL  AND  PASTORAL  PLAYS  69 

Turks  who  had  captured  their  sweethearts  on  the  high  seas. 
Knights  and  ladies  then  joyfully  celebrate  their  reunion.  The 
Turks  apparently  bear  no  ill-will  for  their  defeat  and  dance  a 
ballet.  This  is  followed  by  a  tourney,  after  which  all  the 
actors  present  themselves  before  the  Duke  and  announce  their 
intention  of  returning  to  Malta.  1 

Entertainments  of  this  sort,  with  their  mingling  of  recita- 
tion, pantomime,  singing,  dancing  and  fencing  were  frequently 
presented  at  many  of  the  Italian  Courts  in  the  closing  years  of 
the  fifteenth  century  and  it  is  natural  to  suppose  that  these 
elaborate  ballets  were  introduced  in  Valencia  by  the  Duke 
of  Calabria  or  members  of  his  entourage.  Other  ballets  of 
a  less  dramatic  character  are  also  described  in  El  cortesano. 
Whatever  their  origin,  these  entertainments  belong  more  prop- 
erly to  the  history  of  the  mask  than  to  the  drama. 

No  other  form  of  literature  is  so  completely  dependent  upon 
patronage  as  the  festival  play.  The  most  gifted  poet  might 
display  his  imagination  and  fancy  in  writing  a  play  to  cele- 
brate some  event,  but  he  could  not  produce  it  without  the  en- 
couragement and  financial  aid  of  a  wealthy  patron.  The 
festival  play  was  dependent  upon  private  initiative  because 
of  the  large  expense  involved  in  adequately  staging  it.  Ar- 
chitects, painters  and  musicians  were  required  to  give  a  pro- 
per setting  and  a  cultured  audience  was  needed  to  properly 
appreciate  it.  From  the  outset,  the  festival  play  was  a  prod- 
uct of  the  artistic  ideals  of  a  small  aristocratic  group. 
Courtly  conceptions  of  life  and  of  art  were  mirrored  in  these 
entertainments,  and  if  comic  scenes  of  low  life  were  intro- 
duced, it  was  only  to  serve  the  purpose  of  a  foil.  Poliziano's 
Orfeo  reflects  the  love  of  the  beautiful  that  animated  the  Court 
of  Lorenzo  de'  Medici,  as  the  Aminta  and  //  Pastor  Fido  re- 
present the  literary  traditions  of  Ferrara.  The  court  of  the 
learned  Elizabeth  is  pictured  in  the  court  entertainments  of 
John  Lyly  and  the  passion  of  her  successor  for  shows  and 
pageants  finds  expression  in  the  masques  of  Ben  Jonson.  In 
order  to  avoid  the  commonplace  and  to  give  free  rein  to  the 


70      SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

fancy  of  the  poet,  the  art  of  the  painter  and  the  skill  of  the 
architect,  these  festival  plays  gradually  assumed  the  form  of 
spectacles  in  which  allegorical  and  mythological  material  was 
employed  to  connect  a  series  of  beautiful  scenes. 

We  must  explain  the  retardation  in  the  development  of  the 
festival  play  in  Spain  of  the  sixteenth  century  by  a  lack  of 
royal  patronage.  The  Emperor  was  not  a  man  of  letters  and 
seems  to  have  given  no  encouragement  to  play-writers.  Philip 
II  was  more  interested  in  theology  than  in  the  theatre,  and 
not  until  the  reign  of  Philip  IV  did  royal  dramatic  entertain- 
ments on  a  lavish  scale  come  into  vogue. 

Happily,  the  external  conditions  that  contributed  to  the  de- 
velopment of  festival  plays  at  Florence,  Naples,  Ferrara  and 
London  were  present  at  the  court  of  Manuel  I  at  the  very 
beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century.  The  Portuguese  Crown 
was  enormously  wealthy,  and  the  King  was  abundantly  able 
to  gratify  his  taste  for  luxury.  The  magnificence  of  the  palace 
of  Belem,  near  Lisbon,  is  eloquent  testimony  of  his  interest 
in  art  and  architecture.  He  was  also  a  patron  of  literature 
and  took  pride  in  being  surrounded  by  men  of  letters.  His 
court  became  the  social  centre  of  the  nation  and  personal 
vanity  and  pride  in  the  achievements  of  his  race  led  him  to 
support  entertainments,  when  the  opportunity  offered  itself, 
which  should  bear  his  fame  to  the  boundaries  of  Portugal  and 
to  foreign  lands  as  well. 

Nothing,  then,  was  lacking  except  the  poet,  and  the  poet 
appeared  in  the  person  of  Gil  Vicente  whose  genius  was 
peculiarly  suited  to  the  composition  of  court  entertainments. 
From  1502  until  1536  Vicente  was  virtually  poet-laureate. 
During  the  reign  of  Manuel,  the  majority  of  his  plays  were 
composed  to  commemorate  religious  festivals,  but  to  this 
period  also  belong  compositions  like  the  splendid  Exhortafao 
da  guerra  and  Auto  da  jama,  written  in  Portuguese  and  in- 
spired by  patriotic  fervour,  and  some  delightful  comedies 
and  farces.  With  the  accession  of  John  III  to  the  throne 
in  1521,  the  religious  plays  were  not  discontinued,  but  the 


FESTIVAL  AND  PASTORAL  PLAYS  71 

festival  entertainments  acquired  a  more  important  place  in  the 
life  of  the  court.  From  that  time,  Gil  Vicente  occupied  the 
same  position  that  was  held  by  Ben  Jonson  a  hundred  years 
later  at  the  court  of  James.  A  royal  wedding,  or  betrothal 
or  the  birth  of  a  prince  or  princess,  or  a  royal  entry,  could 
only  be  celebrated  fittingly  by  a  play  composed  in  honour  of 
the  occasion  by  the  illustrious  poet.  Not  only  was  he  the 
author  of  these  compositions,  but  stage-director  and  sometimes 
an  actor  as  well.  It  is  regrettable  that  documents  have  not 
been  discovered  that  would  permit  us  to  visualize  these 
splendid  spectacles  with  a  basis  of  fact,  but  the  texts  them- 
selves furnish  proof  that  these  plays  were  presented  with  a 
magnificence  that  charmed  the  eye  as  well  as  the  ear. 

Limiting  ourselves  for  the  present  to  the  festival  plays,  the 
Exhortafao  da  guerra,  Auto  da  jama,  Cortes  de  Jupiter  and 
the  Auto  da  festa  are  composed  wholly  or  almost  entirely  in 
Portuguese,  and  therefore  fall  outside  the  limits  of  this  study. 
The  tragicomedy  of  the  Fragoa  d'Amor,  in  Castilian  and 
Portuguese,  was  written  to  celebrate  the  betrothal  of  John 
III  to  Catherine  of  Castile,  sister  of  the  Emperor,  in  1524. 
Here  the  winning  of  the  Infanta's  heart  is  described  as  the 
conquest  of  a  castle  by  Cupid,  who  in  spite  of  its  body-guard 
of  Virtues,  has  succeeded  in  nailing  in  its  centre  the  arms  of 
Portugal.  Venus  then  appears  in  search  of  her  runaway 
Cupid,  but  her  anxiety  is  relieved  when  she  learns  of  the 
new  laurels  he  has  won  in  Spain.  The  scene  is  apparently  de- 
rived from  Sannazzaro's  Farsa  di  Venere,  che  cerca  il  figliuolo 
Amore,  and  recalls  Ben  Jonson's  charming  masque  The  Hue 
and  Cry  after  Cupid. 

A  beautiful  castle  is  then  introduced  and  from  one  of  its 
doors  issue  four  gentlemen  who  represent  Mercury,  Jupiter, 
Saturn  and  the  Sun,  and  four  maidens.  The  four  Planets 
construct  a  forge  of  Love  which  has  the  power  to  refashion 
man  or  woman,  restoring  youth  to  the  aged  and  endowing  the 
homely  with  beauty.  A  negro  is  the  first  applicant  for  treat- 
ment; he  enters  the  forge  and  the  Planets  pound  with  their* 


72     SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

hammers  while  the  maidens  sing.  He  comes  forth  comple- 
tely white,  but  preserving,  much  to  his  disgust,  his  peculiar 
manner  of  spech.  The  crippled  figure  of  Justice  then  pre- 
sents herself,  with  crooked  staff  and  broken  scales.  She 
wishes  to  be  straightened  and  made  anew  before  the  new 
Queen  comes  to  Portugal.  She  proves  to  be  a  difficult  case, 
and  can  only  be  refashioned  when  deprived  of  some  of  her 
ill-gotten  gains.  The  courage  of  the  poet  did  not  desert  him) 
even  on  occasions  when  flattery  would  have  been  more  wel- 
come than  criticism.  The  next  candidate  is  a  friar  who  has 
had  enough  of  monastic  life  and  wishes  to  become  a  young 
gallant.  With  this  change  effected,  the  play  ends  with  what 
seems  to  be  a  promise  of  a  second  part. 

The  Templo  d'Apolo,  written  chiefly  in  Castilian,  was  per- 
formed at  Almeirim  in  November,  1526,  to  celebrate  the  be- 
trothal of  the  Princess  Isabel,  sister  of  John  III,  to  Charles 
V,  and  her  departure  for  Spain.  The  author  apologizes  in  the 
prologue  for  certain  imperfections  in  his  work  which  he  ascribes 
to  illness,  and  narrates  in  burlesque  form  a  vision  he  had  had 
when  he  believed  that  death  was  imminent,  a  witty  imitation  of 
the  Infierno  de  los  enamorados  theme.  Apollo  then  appears 
and  preaches  a  burlesque  sermon  de  amores,  which  we  shall 
see,  was  a  prominent  feature  of  many  wedding  plays.  Vari- 
ous allegorical  figures,  dressed  as  pilgrims,  are  refused  admit- 
tance to  the  Temple  of  Apollo  by  the  door-keeper,  but  are 
finally  received  when  they  laud  to  the  skies  the  glorious 
achievements  of  the  Emperor  and  the  virtues  of  the  Princess. 

The  Nao  d' Amores,  written  in  Castilian  and  Portuguese,  and 
performed  at  Lisbon  in  1527  in  honor  of  the  newly-married 
Queen  Catherine,  is  one  of  Gil  Vicente's  most  delightful  plays. 
There  is  real  beauty  in  the  romantic  conception  of  the  Prince 
of  Normandy  who  must  win  the  maiden  Fortune  in  order  to 
prove  his  love  for  Fame,  the  lady  of  his  heart's  desire,  and 
who  constructs  a  ship  of  Love,  with  Cupid  as  captain,  to  bear 
him  on  his  quest.  The  boat  is  described  with  a  wealth  of 
symbolic  imagery  that  recalls  the  craft  that  carried  Jeoffroy 


FESTIVAL  AND  PASTORAL  PLAYS 


73 


Rudel  to  the  Countess  of  Tripoli  in  Rostand's  La  Princesse 
lointaine.  With  its  motley  assortment  of  passengers  who  em- 
bark to  seek  Fortune,  the  Nao  d'Amores  may  be  regarded  as 
a  playful  pendant  to  the  Barca  do  Inferno,  Barca  do  Purga- 
torio  and  Barca  da  Gloria. 

The  Comedia  sobre  a  divisa  da  cidade  de  Coimbra,  per- 
formed in  that  city  in  1527,  proposes  to  explain  in  whimsical 
fashion  the  meaning  of  the  coat-of-arms  of  Coimbra  and  the 
origin  of  local  geographical  names.  Its  fantastic  plot  is  de- 
rived from  the  romances  of  chivalry,  and  as  a  humorous  ex- 
cursion into  archaeology,  the  play  has  points  of  contact  with 
Sa  de  Miranda's  Fabula  do  Mondego.1  The  Triumpho  do 
Inverno,  performed  in  1529  in  honor  of  the  birth  of  the  In- 
fanta Isabel,  presents  with  a  rustic  setting  the  familar  Con- 
flictus  veris  et  hiemis,  and  contains  some  popular  lyrics  of 
rare  beauty. 

The  Auto  da  Lusitania,  composed  like  the  foregoing,  in 
Castilian  and  Portuguese,  was  performed  in  1532  in  honor  of 
the  birth  of  Prince  Manuel.  This  deals  with  the  courtship  of 
the  maiden  Lusitania  by  a  Greek  knight,  Portugal,  who  finally 
wins  her  hand  in  spite  of  the  pretensions  of  Mercury,  whose 
suit  is  encouraged  by  Venus  and  other  goddesses.  The  most 
interesting  scene  in  the  play  is  the  interlude  that  shows  two 
devils  taking  notes  on  the  conversation  between  a  rich  mer- 
chant named  Todo  o  Mundo  and  a  poor  fellow  named  Nin- 
guem.  Owing  to  these  strange  names,  the  devils  gain  an 
equally  strange  impression  of  the  state  of  this  world  for  they 
learn  that  Everybody  seeks  honour  and  Nobody  seeks  virtue, 
Everybody  is  praised  and  Nobody  is  reproved,  Everybody 
seeks  life  and  Nobody  knows  death,  Everybody  desires  Para- 
dise and  Nobody  pays  his  debts,  etc.  This  jest  is  by  no  means 
original  with  Gil  Vicente,  for  it  is  found  in  the  ninth  book  of 
the  Odyssey,  in  the  English  Nobody  and  Somebody,  the  French 
Aucun  et  Tout  le  Monde,  the  Castilian  Entremes  del  Mundo 

1  Carolina  Michaelis  de  Vasconcellos,  Notas  Vicentinas.    Gil  Vicente 
em  Bruxelas  ou  O  jubileu  de  Amor,  Coimbra,  1912,  p.  38. 


74  SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

y  No  Nadie,  Ulrich  von  Hutten's  Nemo  and  in  other  medieval 
and  Renaissance  writers, x  but  we  must  concede  that  he  gave 
it  an  effective  setting  and  handled  it  with  skill. 

From  its  very  nature,  the  construction  of  the  festival  play 
was  often  loose.  Occupying  a  middle  place  between  the 
pageant  and  real  drama,  it  depended  for  success  upon  scenic 
effects,  music,  songs  and  dances  as  well  as  upon  the  beauty  of 
the  lines.  It  contained  more  recitation  than  action  or  drama- 
tic conflict.  We  cannot,  therefore,  judge  Gil  Vicente  as  a 
dramatist  by  his  festival  plays.  In  them  we  find  wit,  grace, 
good-taste  and  a  charming  lyrical  note.  It  is  in  his  comedies 
and  farces  that  he  displays  his  skill  in  dramatic  construction, 
his  keen  powers  of  observation  and  broad  human  sympathy. 

Both  in  the  circumstances  attending  their  performance  and 
in  subject  matter,  the  pastoral  and  festival  plays  have  much  in. 
common.  The  Spanish  pastoral  plays  were  entertainments 
for  aristocratic  audiences  on  the  occasion  of  weddings  or  other 
festivity.  They  represented  courtly  traditions,  and  when 
rustic  scenes  were  introduced,  it  was  only  to  contrast  the  de- 
licate sensibilities  and  polished  speech  of  gentlefolk  with 
the  ignorance  and  rude  language  of  shepherds. 

The  requesta  de  amores  theme  as  presented  by  Encina,  and 
the  unhappy  love  of  knight  and  lady  (or  shepherd  and  shep- 
herdess) in  the  Egloga  de  ires  pastor es  and  Egloga  de  Placida 
y  Vitoriano,  formed  the  basis  for  the  subsequent  development 
of  the  pastoral  drama,  and  very  few  new  elements  were  added 
before  the  time  of  Lope  de  Vega.  The  influence  of  Encina 
is  clear  in  the  three  pastoral  plays  of  his  contemporary,  Lucas 
Fernandez,  published  at  Salamanca  in  1514.  One  of  these, 
called  simply  Farsa  o  cuasi  comedia,  reproduces  the  rivalry 
between  a  knight  and  shepherd  for  a  maiden's  love  that  we  find 
in  Encina's  first  Egloga  en  requesta  de  amores.  A  young 
woman  appears,  protesting,  like  another  Cefira  or  Placida,  that 

1  Carolina  Michaelis  de  Vasconcellos,  op.  cit.,  p.  86,  and  Rudolph 
Schevill,  Cuatro  palabras  sobre  "Nadie",  Revista  Critica  hispano~ 
americana,  vol.  i,  1915,  pp.  30-37. 


FESTIVAL  AND  PASTORAL  PLAYS 


75 


Fortune  has  separated  her  from  her  lover.  She  inquires  of  a 
shepherd  whom  she  meets  whether  he  has  seen  a  knight  in  the 
neighborhood,  but  the  fellow  does  not  understand  the  meaning 
of  caballero,  and  when  she  explains  that  it  means  courtier,  he 
is  not  abashed  and  brazenly  offers  himself  as  a  substitute.  The 
hapless  maiden,  who  expresses  her  feelings  like  a  heroine  of 
the  romances  of  chivalry,  declares  that,  like  Dido,  she  will  put 
an  end  to  her  life.  The  shepherd  declares  that  Dido  must 
have  been  a  fool,  and  advises  her  to  offer  a  reward  for  her 
lost  love,  for  he  had  once  recovered  a  donkey  by  such  means. 
When  he  urges  his  suit  in  his  rude  way,  the  lady  expresses 
surprise  that  even  shepherds  feel  the  wounds  of  Cupid,  and  he 
describes  in  rustic  fashion  the  power  of  Love  over  all  creatures. 
He  suggests  that  she  may  find  a  refuge  in  his  cabin,  but  she 
declares  that  she  nrpfprq  the  grave.  At  this  point  the  missing 
knight  appears  who  makes  short  work  of  the  shepherd  and 
Tiis  pretensions,  and  the  play  ends  with  a  song. 

In  this  play  the  maiden  is  a  gentlewoman,  and  the  farcical 
element  consists  in  the  inability  of  a  rude  shepherd  to  share 
the  refined  feelings  and  to  understand  the  conventional  lang- 
uage of  gentlefolk.  In  a  number  of  later  pastoral  plays  we 
find  a  lady  similarly  exposed  to  impertinent  proposals  from1 
boorish  shepherds. 

Love  among  shepherds  is  again  the  subject  of  Fernandez's 
Farsa  o  cuasi  comedia  del  soldado.  The  shepherd  Prabos  is 
a  victim  of  Love's  cruelty.  His  flock  roams  at  will  and  the 
pleasures  of  life  have  turned  to  bitterness.  A  soldier 
sympathetically  offers  him  good  advice,  and  then  another 
shepherd,  Pascual,  appears  and  makes  sport  of  his  compan- 
ion's trouble.  He  suggests  a  mixture  of  herbs  that  may 
cure  him  as  they  have  relieved  a  sick  donkey.  The  soldier 
resents  Pascual's  mocking  tone,  and  explains  the  seriousness 
of  Love's  wounds  according  to  the  courtly  conceptions  of 
the  time.  He  loses  patience  at  Pascual's  impertinent  inter- 
ruptions, and  a  sort  of  contrasto  follows  in  which  the  shep- 
herds declare  that  military  service  is  only  suited  to  idlers, 


76  SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

rascals  and  thieves,  while  the  soldier  affirms  that  the  army 
maintains  justice  and  order,  and  proudly  shows  his  Crusader's 
cross.  Peace  is  finally  restored  and  Pascual  goes  in  search 
of  Antona,  Prabos's  sweetheart,  who  after  some  hesitation 
accepts  his  hand.  Pascual  receives  from  each  the  promise  of 
marriage  and  the  play  ends  with  a  song  in  praise  of  Love.  The 
mock-cermony  in  the  last  scene  and  the  text  of  the  song  allow 
us  to  assume  that  this  play  was  performed  to  celebrate  a  be- 
trothal in  the  household  of  some  nobleman.  The  allusions  to! 
certain  plays  of  Encina,  including  the  Egloga  de  ires  pastores, 
prove  that  it  was  composed  between  1509  and  1514. 

Fernandez's  Comedia  de  Bras-Gil  y  Beringuella,  composed 
before  the  play  above-mentioned,  is  the  reductio  ad  absurdum, 
according  to  aristocratic  standards,  of  the  requesta  de  amores 
theme.  Here  all  the  characters  belong  to  the  peasant  class. 
The  shepherd  Bras-Gil  pays  court  to  the  shepherdess  Berin- 
guella, proposes  marriage  to  her  and  is  accepted  as  her  betro- 
thed. As  they  sing  together  a  simple  little  lyric,  Beringuella's 
grandfather,  Juan-Benito,  rudely  breaks  in  upon  their  happi- 
ness, charging  Bras-Gil  with  dishonorable  intentions  with  re- 
spect to  Beringuella.  Bras-Gil  indignantly  denies  the  charge, 
and  they  are  on  the  point  of  coming  to  blows  when  a  peace- 
maker opportunely  arrives  in  the  person  of  Miguel-Turra, 
who  proposes  that  Bras-Gil  prove  his  sincerity  by  marrying 
Beringuella.  Juan-Benito  objects  that  the  suitor  is  not  the 
equal  of  his  granddaughter  in  either  family  or  fortune,  and 
Bras-Gil  replies  with  a  farcical  list  of  his  relatives  and  ac- 
quaintances. Juan-Benito  is  satisfied  with  this  evidence  of 
respectability,  and  gives  his  consent  to  the  wedding.  Miguel- 
Turra  then  asks  about  the  maiden's  dower,  and  her  grand- 
father promises  a  formidable  array  of  live-stock  and  house- 
hold utensils.  The  bridegroom,  on  his  part,  promises  a  large 
number  of  articles  of  wearing  apparel  and  adornment  for  the 
bride.  The  guests  gather  to  celebrate  the  betrothal,  and  the 
play  ends  with  a  song  and  dance  alluding  to  this  happy  event. 
Bras-Gil's  courtship  is  conceived  in  a  spirit  of  burlesque  that 


FESTIVAL  AND  PASTORAL  PLAYS  77 

must  have  diverted  an  audience  of  gentlemen  and  ladies,  and 
the  emphasis  laid  upon  the  recital  of  Bras-Gil's  pedigree  and 
upon  the  dowry  and  the  bridegroom's  presents  allows  us  to 
assume  that  this  interesting  little  composition  was  performed 
to  celebrate  a  betrothal. 

The  Egloga  de  Torino,  included  in  the  anonymous  Question 
de  Amor,  which  was  first  published  at  Valencia  in  1513,  forms 
a  connecting  link  between  the  Spanish  and  Italian  pastoral 
drama  at  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century.  A  bit  of 
casuistry,  later  used  by  Garcilaso  de  la  Vega  in  his  first 
eclogue,  gives  its  title  to  this  novel,  which  has  as  background 
aristocratic  society  at  Naples  between  the  years  1508  and  1512. 
The  novel  is  hardly  more  than  a  description  of  the  diversions 
and  amusements  of  a  group  of  persons  whose  identity  has 
been  fixed  in  many  cases,  and  it  is  likely  that  the  Egloga  de 
Torino  was  performed  before  a  future  Queen  of  Poland,  Bona 
Sforza,  and  other  characters  who  appear  in  the  novel.1 

Torino  mourns  because  his  love  for  Benita  (Bona  Sforza) 
is  not  returned.  After  bidding  a  tender  farewell  to  his  flock, 
his  rebec  and  staff,  he  attempts  to  take  his  life,  since  only  in 
death  can  he  find  relief  for  his  suffering.  The  shepherd  Gui- 
llardo  hears  his  groans  and  tries  in  vain  to  restore  him  to  con- 
sciousness. His  companion  Quiral  is  more  successful  and  in- 
quires the  cause  of  his  trouble,  making  amusing  conjectures. 
Torino  replies  that  his  malady  is  poca  esperansa,  but  Guillardo 
still  refuses  to  understand  the  nature  of  his  disease.  He 
thinks  Love  must  be  something  like  a  basilisk,  which  he  has 
heard,  kills  all  those  who  see  it.  Benita  then  draws  near  and 
on  hearing  the  subject  of  their  discussion,  bids  Torino  cease 
his  importunities,  but  the  lover  declares  that  he  is  powerless 
to  banish  her  from  his  thoughts.  The  eclogue  closes  with  a 
vUlancico  sung  by  the  three  shepherds. 

Although  this  play  was  composed  and  probably  performed 

1  Benedetto  Croce,  Di  un  antico  romanzo  spagnuolo,  Archivio  per  le 
provincie  napoletane,  vol.  xix,  1894,  and  Menendez  y  Pelayo,  Origenes 
de  la  novela,  vol.  i,  Madrid,  1905. 


78     SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

in  Italy,  it  does  not  seem  to  owe  much  to  Italian  sources.  It 
reproduces  situations  found  in  many  Italian  eclogues  of  the 
time,  such  as  the  unhappiness  of  a  shepherd  caused  by  un- 
requited, love  and  the  attempt  at  suicide,  but  these  are  already 
present  in  the  Egloga  de  tres  pastores  of  Encina,  and  the 
opening  scenes  in  these  two  plays  offer  many  similarities. 
From  the  same  play  is  probably  derived  the  use  of  coplas  de 
arte  mayor  in  the  Egloga  de  Torino.  The  burlesque  element 
in  the  pastoral,  which  even  appeared  in  Poliziano's  Orfeo, 
became  popular  in  the  early  years  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
but  we  need  not  assign  this  element  to  Italian  imitation  since 
burlesque  scenes  are  found  in  plays  of  Encina  and  Lucas 
Fernandez.  The  only  feature  of  the  Egloga  de  Torino  that 
may  with  certainty  be  ascribed  to  Italian  influence  is  the  in- 
troduction of  real  persons  as  characters,  a  practice  commonly 
found  in  the  early  Italian  eclogues. 

An  anonymous  Egloga  pastoril  proves  that  at  an  early  date 
the  plays  of  Encina  were  known  and  imitated  at  Valencia. 
Composed  toward  the  end  of  1519  or  the  early  part  of  1520, 
it  was  probably  performed  to  celebrate  the  escape  of  the  city 
from  the  dangers  of  plague  and  from  a  threatened  incursion 
of  a  Moorish  fleet.  The  solemnity  of  the  verses  that  describe 
the  abandoned  state  of  the  city,  which  recall  the  famous  coplas 
of  Jorge  Manrique,  ill  accords  with  the  burlesque  account  of 
the  grief  of  the  shepherd  Climentejo  over  the  marriage  of  his 
sweetheart  to  a  rival  and  the  cure  of  his  malady  effected  by 
the  village  encantador.  The  play  is  in  many  respects  insig- 
nificant, but  it  is  worthy  of  vote  that  the  earliest  extant  ex- 
ample of  the  secular  drama  at  Valencia  borrowed  its  form, 
chief  incidents,  language  and  versification  from  a  Castilian 
poet. 

To  approximately  the  same  period  belongs  an  Egloga  nueva, 
attributed  to  Diego  Duran,  which  represents  with  certain  vari- 
ations the  conventional  requesta  de  amores  theme.  A  shep- 
herdess, seeking  her  flock,  meets  a  mendicant  friar  who  com- 
pliments her  on  her  beauty  and  offers  her  his  love.  She  re- 


FESTIVAL  AND  PASTORAL  PLAYS 


79 


minds  him  of  his  holy  calling,  and  he  replies  that  those  who 
carry  on  God's  work  are  more  often  wounded  by  Cupid's 
arrows  than  anyone  else.  He  becomes  insistent,  the  maiden 
indignantly  repels  him  and  a  taffy-vender  opportunely  inter- 
venes. The  latter  offers  his  protection  to  the  shepherdess, 
but  agrees  to  play  a  game  of  cards  with  the  mendicant  and 
retires,  stripped  of  all  of  his  possessions. 

Once  more  the  mendicant  prepares  to  assure  himself  of 
his  victim  when  a  friar  intervenes  who  roundly  abuses  him 
for  his  wicked  intention.  In  an  unedifying  scene,  these  two 
representatives  of  the  Church  accuse  one  another  of  gross 
misconduct,  and  finally  the  friar  goes  off  to  report  his  col- 
league's offence  to  the  prior.  Once  again  the  maiden  is  in 
danger,  but  two  shepherds  appear  who  promise  to  punish  the 
offender  as  he  deserves.  Thev  agree  to  play  a  game,  which 
ends  with  the  complete  discomfiture  of  the  mendicant.  The 
song  which  concludes  the  farce  indicates  Shrove  Tuesday  as 
the  day  of  the  performance.  The  original  edition  is  undated, 
but  its  primitive  character  allows  us  to  conjecture  that  it  was 
probably  composed  about  the  year  1520.  The  most  striking 
feature  of  the  play  is  the  virulent  satire  of  the  morals  of 
members  of  the  clergy,  which  is  also  found  in  a  number1 
of  other  comedies  and  farces  written  in  the  first  half  of  the 
sixteenth  century.  Apparently  considerable  latitude  was  al- 
lowed in  the  publication  of  works  of  this  kind  until  the  year 
1559  when  the  first  Index  librorum  prohibitorum  was  issued. 

An  Egloga  of  Juan  de  Paris  of  which  the  earliest  known 
edition  bears  the  date  1536,  combines  the  themes  of  Encina's 
Placida  y  Vitoriano  and  Cristino  y  Febea.  Estacio,  heart- 
broken over  the  disappearance  of  his  sweetheart,  Numida, 
whom  he  seeks  in  vain,  determines  to  put  an  end  to  his  life, 
but  is  persuaded  by  a  hermit  to  banish  love  from  his  thoughts 
and  to  devote  himself  to  the  service  of  God.  In  the  mean- 
time, Numida  is  also  seeking  her  lover  and  is  accosted  by  a 
shepherd,  who  is  unable  to  understand  the  cause  of  her  grief 
and  proposes  himself  as  a  substitute  for  the  missing  Estacio. 


go  SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

However,  the  shepherd  is  instrumental  in  re-uniting  the  lovers, 
and  one  glance  at  Numida  suffices  to  cure  Estacio  of  his  de- 
sire to  embrace  the  religious  life.  The  play  ends  with  a 
burlesque  wedding  ceremony  performed  by  the  shepherd. 

Diego  de  Negueruela's  Farsa  llamada  Ardamisa  presents 
still  another  maiden  wandering  alone  in  search  of  her  lover 
and  exposed  to  all  sorts  of  unpleasant  encounters.  With  a 
conventional  setting  so  well  established,  it  required  little  im- 
agination to  add  new  characters.  Here  Ardamisa  laments  the 
indifference  of  Galirano,  who  has  wearied  of  her  own  indif- 
ference, and  calls  upon  death  to  ease  her  pain.  She  indig- 
nantly rejects  the  brutal  proposals  of  a  water-carrier,  and 
later  the  ridiculous  pretensions  of  an  enamoured  Portuguese. 
The  latter  is  driven  away  by  a  bragging  swashbuckler,  who 
offers  his  protection  in  pompous  phrases,  boasting  of  the  ex- 
ploits he  has  already  performed. 

This  illustrious  descendant  of  Pyrgopolinices,  however,  does 
not  offer  his  services  disinterestedly,  for  he  threatens  to  gain 
possession  of  the  lady  by  violence.  Her  lover,  Galirano, 
arrives  in  the  nick  of  time,  and  the  braggart,  after  a  show  of 
resistance,  falls  to  the  ground  repeating  the  Creed.  A  friar 
then  accosts  the  lovers  and  preaches  them  a  sermon  to  prove 
that  the  salvation  of  their  souls  is  endangered  by  their  passion 
for  one  another.  He  suggests  that  Galirano  enter  a  monastery 
and  offers  to  conduct  the  lady  to  a  place  of  safety.  The 
offer  is  rejected,  and  the  vanquished  suitors  then  enter  into 
a  conspiracy  to  abduct  the  lady.  As  the  conspirators  stand 
before  the  house  where  the  lovers  have  taken  refuge,  Ardamisa 
and  Galirano  come  forth  quite  calmly,  and  bid  farewell  to  the 
audience,  and  the  play  ends  with  a  sword-dance. 

Nothing  is  known  concerning  the  author.  The  only  early 
edition  bears  no  date,  but  the  play  can  be  ascribed  without 
question  to  the  first  half  of  the  century.  Judging  from  its 
primitive  character,  we  may  not  be  far  wrong  in  assigning  its 
composition  to  about  the  year  1530.  The  love-sick  Portu- 
guese, the  rufidn  cobarde  and  gipsy  fortune-teller  are  stock 


FESTIVAL  AND  PASTORAL  PLAYS  gl 

figures  in  sixteenth-century  comedy,  and  the  shameless  friar 
again  indicates  the  popular  attitude  toward  some  of  the 
religious  orders. 

The  Farsa  llamada  Cornelia,  only  extant  in  an  edition  of 
1603,  but  almost  certainly  composed  in  the  first  half  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  shows  a  further  deterioration  of  the  re- 
questa  de  amores.  Preceded  by  a  comic  prologue  after  the 
manner  of  Torres  Naharro,  it  describes  the  rude  courtship 
of  the  shepherdess  Cornelia  by  Benito,  and  the  intervention  of 
the  latter  and  his  companion  to  prevent  the  abduction  of  the 
girl  by  a  rufidn.  From  the  standpoint  of  language  and  con- 
tent, the  play  is  without  merit. 

The  request  a  de  amores  theme,  treated  a  lo  divino,  is  found 
in  the  Copiers  de  una  doncella  y  un  pastor,  said  to  have  been 
printed  as  early  as  1530.  A  distraught  maiden  rejects  the 
proposals  of  a  shepherd  who  warns  her  that  she  will  be  eaten 
by  a  wild  man  (salvaje}  if  she  remains  alone.  The  wild  man 
who  interrupts  this  courtship  proves  to  be  a  hermit  who  per- 
suades the  girl  to  cast  aside  all  worldly  thoughts  and  conse- 
crate herself  to  the  Virgin.  The  setting  here  is  the  same  as 
in  the  above-mentioned  plays,  but  the  denouement  is  new. 

The  Spaniard's  innate  love  of  realism  was  responsible  for 
the  introduction  of  burlesque  scenes  as  a  foil  to  the  extrava- 
gant declamation  of  many  of  the  early  pastoral  plays,  and  in 
Diego  Sanchez  de  Badajoz's  Farsa  de  la  hechicera  we  find  a 
whole  play  devoted  to  the  purpose  of  parody.  A  love-sick 
gallant  calls  upon  death,  in  rhetorical  fashion,  to  free  hint 
from  his  suffering.  He  is  about  to  strike  himself  to  the 
heart  when  courage  and  strength  fail  him,  and  he  falls  in  a! 
faint.  He  is  found  by  a  shepherd  who  places  garlic  in  his 
mouth  as  first-aid  treatment,  and  hurries  off  in  search  of  a  witch 
who  is  expert  in  the  treatment  of  cramps.  The  ending  of 
the  play  is  highly  diverting.  The  witch,  finding  that  she  has 
to  deal  with  a  more  serious  malady  than  cramps,  draws  a 
circle  on  the  ground,  scatters  grain  in  the  form  of  a  cross  and 
begins  a  conjuration  that  will  kindle  love  in  the  heart  of  the 


82  SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

lady  whom  the  gallant  adores.  A  devil  appears  in  answer  to) 
the  summons  and  is  sent  off  to  re-unite  the  lovers  while  the 
shepherd,  very  much  frightened,  takes  refuge  with  the  old 
woman  inside  the  magic  circle.  He  is  finally  carried  off  to 
prison  by  the  magistrate  on  a  false  charge  brought  by  the 
witch,  and  the  spectator,  or  reader,  is  left  in  doubt  as  to  the 
fate  of  the  unhappy  knight.  This  is  a  little  masterpiece  of 
keen  satire  and  rollicking  horseplay,  and  probably  represents 
the  attitude  of  an  audience  of  tradespeople  and  peasants 
toward  the  artificialities  of  earlier  pastoral  plays. 

A  more  ambitious  treatment  of  conventional  pastoral 
motives  than  hitherto  attempted  in  Spain  is  found  in  the 
Comedia  Florisea  of  Francisco  de  Avendano,  first  published 
in  1551  and  the  earliest  play  that  we  possess  divided  into* 
three  fornadas.  Here  two  unfortunates,  Muerto  and  Floriseo, 
the  one  a  victim  of  the  cruel  blows  of  Fortune  and  the  other 
of  unrequited  love,  determine  to  put  an  end  to  their  lives,  but 
this  double  suicide  is  averted  by  the  arrival  of  a  shepherd 
who  makes  sport  of  their  laments.  After  the  usual  exper- 
iences that  fall  to  the  lot  of  young  women  traveling  alone  ac- 
cording to  the  conventions  of  pastoral  plays,  Blancaflor  finds 
his  missing  Florisea,  and  a  comic  wedding  ceremony,  per- 
formed by  the  bobo,  unites  the  lovers.  Fortune  appears  op- 
portunely to  present  the  couple  with  a  wedding-gift  of  a 
thousand  ducats  and  to  promise  to  provide  abundantly  for 
Muerto.  The  prologue  and  the  comic  scene  between  the! 
shepherd  and  Fortune  seem  to  be  derived  from  Torres 
Naharro's  Comedia  Trofea,  but  in  its  general  outline  the  play 
follows  Encina's  Egloga  de  Placida  y  Vitoriano  and  the  Egloga 
of  Juan  de  Paris. 

The  more  formal  type  of  dramatic  eclogue  is  represented  by 
the  Comedia  Tibalda  of  Per  Alvarez  de  Ay  lion,  the  date  of 
which  can  only  be  conjectured  from  the  fact  that  certain  verses 
of  its  author  were  included  in  the  1511  edition  of  the  Cancio^ 
nero  general  of  Hernando  del  Castillo.  It  was  first  printed  in 
1553  under  the  title  Comedia  de  Preteo  y  Tibalda,  with  cer- 


FESTIVAL  AND  PASTORAL  PLAYS  83 

tain  additions  by  Luis  Hurtado  de  Toledo.  It  was  written  in 
coplas  de  arte  mayor,  the  measure  used  by  Encina  in  his 
Egloga  de  tres  pastores,  with  which  it  offers  striking  similar- 
ities in  subject  matter.  The  composition  merely  serves  as  a 
medium  for  the  discussion  of  two  questions  that  are  fre- 
quently found  in  Spanish  literature  of  the  early  sixteenth 
century,  the  remedies  for  the  malady  of  Love,  and  the  virtues 
and  imperfections  of  women.  For  the  first  of  these,  the 
author  is  indebted  to  Ovid's  Remedia  amoris,  while  the  inor- 
dinately long  defense  of  women  is  copied  almost  literally  from 
Juan  Rodriguez  del  Padron's  Triunfo  de  las  donas. 

Luis  Hurtado  de  Toledo  not  only  attempted  to  compose  a 
more  satisfactory  ending  to  the  Comedia  Tibalda,  but  also 
wrote  another  pastoral  eclogue  entitled  Egloga  Silviana  del 
galardon  de  amor,  published  at  Valladolid  with  the  second 
edition  of  the  Comedia  Tibalda,  the  date  of  which  is  not 
known.  The  Egloga  Silviana  follows  closely  the  incidents  of 
the  Egloga  de  Torino,  and  offers  little  of  interest.  Like  the 
Comedia  Tibalda,  it  should  probably  be  classified  as  a  non- 
dramatic  eclogue. 

In  the  prologue  to  his  Ocho  comedian  (1615),  Cervantes 
writes  that  Lope  de  Rueda  "  was  admirable  in  pastoral  poetry, 
and  in  this  respect  was  unsurpassed  in  his  own  time  or  there- 
after ".  This  praise  is  over-generous  if  we  may  judge  from 
the  two  artificial  pastorals  of  Rueda  that  are  extant.  One  of 
these,  the  Comedia  llamada  Discordia  y  question  de  amor  is 
known  only  in  an  edition  of  the  year  1617,  in  which  it  is 
ascribed  to  Rueda.  If  he  really  be  the  author,  it  is  reasonably 
certain  that  the  division  into  three  jornadas  is  the  work  of 
some  arreglador  to  make  it  conform  to  the  practice  in  vogue 
at  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century.  The  play  presents 
the  same  circle  of  unhappy  lovers  that  is  found  in  the  sixth 
Idyl  of  Moschus,  in  the  story  of  Selvagia  of  Montemayor's 
Diana,  in  Vicente's  Auto  pastoril  portuguez  and  in  several 
Italian  plays,  and  which  is  familiar  to  all  from  its  use  in  As 
You  Like  It.  With  this  motive  is  combined  the  triumph  of 
Chastity  over  Cupid. 


84  SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

The  other  play  of  Lope  de  Rueda1  that  follows  the  con- 
ventions of  the  artificial  pastoral  is  the  Coloquio  llamado  pren- 
das  de  amor,  published  at  Valencia  by  Timoneda  in  1567. 
Two  shepherds,  Menandro  and  Simon,  have  received  gifts 
from  the  shepherdess  Cilena,  and  fall  into  a  dispute  as  to 
which  has  obtained  the  greater  mark  of  her  affection.  When 
they  refer  the  question  for  decision  to  Cilena,  the  maiden  re- 
plies by  giving  to  each  another  present.  This  colloquy  has  no 
dramatic  value,  and  was  probably  composed  for  the  entertain- 
ment of  some  aristocratic  gathering.  Casuistical  questions  of 
this  kind  were  frequently  given  literary  form  in  Spain,  and 
were  probably  introduced  from  Italy  where  similar  dubbi, 
ccasi  and  questioni  were  popular  in  courtly  circles.  Rueda 
was  lacking  in  the  poetic  fancy  that  was  required  to  redeem 
these  trivial  themes  from  banality.  His  power  lay  rather  in 
portraying  characters  drawn  from  everyday  life,  and  in  re- 
producing in  inimitable  dialogue  the  popular  speech  of  this 
day. 

The  earliest  dramatic  caso  de  amor  in  Spain  is  the  anony- 
mous Comedian  Fenisa,  first  printed  in  1540.  Three  shepherds, 
enamoured  of  Fenisa,  dispute  as  to  which  has  received  the 
greatest  mark  of  her  affection.  Their  pretensions  are  ridi- 
culed by  a  bobo,  who  relates  how  Fenisa  showed  her  interest 
in  him  by  laying  a  mighty  blow  on  his  head  with  her  crook. 
Finally  the  three  rivals  request  Fenisa  to  express  her  pre- 
ference. This  play,  in  spite  of  its  puerile  simplicity,  seems 
to  have  enjoyed  unusual  popularity.  It  was  republished  in 

1  In  his  comedia  Los  banos  de  Argel,  printed  in  1615,  Cervantes  intro- 
duces a  play  performed  by  the  captives  and  uses  for  this  purpose  a 
coloquio  en  -verso  by  Lope  de  Rueda,  of  which  thirty-five  lines  in 
quintillas  are  given.  Although  said  to  have  been  published  by  Timoneda, 
it  does  not  form  a  part  of  any  known  work  of  Lope  de  Rueda.  It  has 
been  suggested  that  these  verses  formed  part  of  a  coloquio  of  Rueda 
entitled  Gila,  of  which  Lope  de  Vega  quotes  two  quintillas  in  the  intro- 
duction to  his  Justa  poetica  de  San  Isidro  (1621).  See  Comedias  y 
"ntrenteses  de  Miguel  de  Cervantes  Saavedra,  edited  by  R.  Schevill  and 
A.  Bonilla  y  San  Martin,  vol.  i,  Madrid,  1015,  p.  380. 


FESTIVAL  AND  PASTORAL  PLAYS  85 

1588  and  1625,  and  forms  the  basis  of  two  religious  plays  of 
the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century,  the  Coloquio  de  Fenisa 
and  Fide  Ypsa,  in  which  the  theme  is  treated  a  lo  divino.  It 
is  likely  that  Juan  de  Melgar,  to  whom  the  version  published 
in  1625  is  attributed,  is  the  arreglador  and  not  the  author. 

The  analogy  is  clear  between  the  Comedia  Fenisa  and  the 
various  themes  treated  in  the  Italian  dubbi  and  casi  d'amore. 
In  three  plays  of  Timoneda,  and  in  Alonso  de  la  Vega's 
Comedia  de  la  Duquesa  de  la  Rosa,  the  representation  of  a 
caso  de  amor  serves  as  a  prologue.  Two  of  these  reproduce 
questions  d'amore  derived  from  Boccaccio's  Filocolo. 

A  return  to  the  circle  of  unhappy  lovers,  treated  by  Lope 
de  Rueda  in  his  Discordia  y  question  de  Amor,  is  found  in  the 
Comedia  Metamorfosea  of  Joaquin  Romero  de  Cepeda,  pub- 
lished in  1582,  in  four  jornadas.  Three  shepherds  and  three 
shepherdesses  suffer  the  pains  of  unrequited  love  and  each 
blames  another  for  heartlessness.  Almost  the  entire  play, 
is  occupied  with  silly  proposals,  followed  by  brusque  re- 
fusals. A  metamorphosis  takes  place  simultaneously  in  their 
hearts,  and  each  shepherd  or  shepherdess  expresses  his  or  her 
love  for  the  person  who  a  moment  before  had  been  scorned. 
This  change  leads  to  as  difficult  a  situation  as  the  previous  one, 
and  the  author,  in  despair  of  reaching  a  satisfactory  conclu- 
sion, ends  the  play. 

The  Comedia  Metamorfosea  closes  the  list  of  pastoral  plays 
composed  in  Spain  in  the  period  that  antedates  the  dramatic) 
activity  of  Lope  de  Vega.  With  the  triumph  of  Italian  comedy 
in  the  second  half  of  the  sixteenth  century,  the  imitations  of 
the  Propalladia  of  Torres  Naharro  and  the  influence  of  class- 
ical and  Italian  tragedy,  the  Spanish  drama  enlarged  its  scope 
and  was  no  longer  content  to  repeat  the  commonplaces  of 
Encina.  The  pastoral  drama  contained  within  itself  the 
cause  of  its  inevitable  dissolution ;  it  was  not  original  and  did 
not  represent  actual  life.  Imitative  by  its  very  nature,  it 
could  not  thrive  when  the  drama  was  no  longer  restricted  td 
private  performances  at  the  palace  of  some  grandee,  but  was 


86     SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

forced  to  go  out  on  the  village  square  or  into  an  improvised 
corral,  to  win  the  plaudits  of  the  crowd.  Audiences  demanded 
at  least  an  approximation  to  realism  or  some  human  interest, 
and  this  demand  the  pastoral  drama  failed  to  supply. 

The  passion  of  Philip  IV  for  dramatic  entertainments  re- 
sulted in  an  active  support  of  the  court  drama,  and  explains 
the  revival  of  pastoral  plays  in  the  period  of  Lope  de  Vega 
and  Calderon  de  la  Barca.  By  that  time,  however,  the  tradi- 
tions of  the  sixteenth-century  drama  were  forgotten  to  a  large 
degree,  and  Italian  subjects,  scenery  and  elaborate  stage  de- 
vices were  in  fashion.  Except  for  the  combination  of  recita- 
tion and  song  found  in  the  works  of  Encina  and  some  of  his 
successors,  there  is  almost  a  complete  break  in  continuity  be- 
tween the  sixteenth-century  pastorals  and  compositions  like 
La  selva  sin  amor  of  Lope  de  Vega  and  Calderon's  El  pastof 
fido. 


CHAPTER  V  \ 

ROMANTIC  COMEDY  AND  THE  COMEDY  OF  MANNERS  BEFORE 
LOPE  DE  RUEDA 

ROMANTIC  comedy  received  its  first  impulse  and  its  general 
direction  for  half  a  century  from  Bartolome  de  Torres 
Naharro.  Unfortunately  we  have  only  a  few  facts  upon  which 
to  base  his  biography.  His  family  name  was  Naharro  and 
he  was  born  at  the  town  of  Torre  de  Miguel  Sexmero  near1 
Badajoz.  We  know  nothing  of  his  education  except  that  he 
shows  an  acquaintance  with  classical  authors  and  that  he  knew 
Latin  well  enough  to  have  written  his  plays  in  that  language, 
according  to  the  testimony  of  one  of  his  friends.  On  one 
occasion,  while  traveling  by  sea,  he  suffered  shipwreck,  and 
to  add  to  his  misfortunes,  he  was  captured  by  pirates  and 
taken  to  Africa.  We  do  not  know  the  date  of  this,  nor  how 
long  his  captivity  lasted.  He  obtained  his  ransom  and  arrived 
at  Rome,  probably  about  the  year  1512.  By  that  time  he 
seems  to  have  reached  middle  age.  The  knowledge  that  he 
shows  of  army  life,  particularly  in  the  Comedia  Soldadesca, 
allows  us  to  assume  that  military  service  occupied  some  part 
of  his  youth.  Two  of  his  most  inspired  compositions  are 
those  addressed  to  the  Great  Captain,  Gonsalvo  de  Cordoba 
and  to  the  memory  of  another  noted  military  leader,  Pedro 
Manrique  de  Lara,  who  died  in  February,  1515. 

His  residence  in  Rome  brought  with  it  bitter  disappoint- 
ments. Driven  by  poverty  to  seek  patronage,  he  found  that 
merit  was  not  rewarded,  and  that  rascals  were  successful 
while  honest  men  starved.  He  obtained  some  sort  of  a  post 
in  the  household  of  the  turbulent  Bernardino  Carvajal, 
Cardinal  of  Santa  Cruz,  who  belonged  to  a  noble  family  of 

87 


88  SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

Plasencia  and  who  had  had  the  temerity  to  openly  defy| 
Julius  II.  An  amusing  picture  of  some  of  the  more  humble 
retainers  of  one  of  his  patrons  is  given  in  the  Comedia 
Tinellaria  which  was  performed,  probably  about  the  year  1514, 
before  a  distinguished  audience  that  included  the  Pope  him- 
self and  also  his  cousin,  Giulio  de'  Medici,  who  became  Pope 
in  1523  under  the  name  of  Clement  VII.  His  ability  to  pro- 
vide entertainment  for  an  aristocratic  gathering  was  recog- 
nized at  this  time,  for,  as  we  know,  he  was  chosen  to  write 
a  play  in  honour  of  the  Portuguese  mission  led  by  Tristao  da 
Cunha. 

We  do  not  know  when  Naharro  entered  the  service  of 
Fabrizio  Colonna,  Grand  Constable  of  Naples,  and  one  of  the 
leading  generals  of  his  time,  but  he  speaks  of  him  in  grateful 
and  affectionate  terms  in  the  preface  to  his  volume  of  lyrical 
verse  and  plays,  entitled  Propalladia,  published  at  Naples  in 
1517.  At  this  time  Naharro  was  living  at  Naples.  The 
volume  was  dedicated  to  Fabrizio  Colonna's  son-in-law, 
Ferrante  Francesco  D'Avalos,  Marquis  of  Pescara,  who  be- 
longed to  a  family  long  distinguished  in  the  annals  of  Spanish 
and  Italian  history.  As  the  husband  of  Vittoria  Colonna, 
and  the  object  of  some  of  her  best  verse,  a  serru'mental  interest 
still  attaches  itself  to  his  name  in  spite  of  his  infamous  treason, 
after  the  battle  of  Pavia.  In  a  decree  of  Leo  X  granting  to 
the  author  sole  rights  to  the  publication  and  sale  of  the  Pro- 
palladia,  Naharro  is  spoken  of  as  a  cleric  of  the  diocese  of 
Badajoz,  but  we  do  not  know  whether  he  entered  the  Church 
before  or  after  his  arrival  in  Rome. 

Even  more  obscure  are  the  facts  of  his  later  years.  Two 
plays  that  were  not  included  in  the  Propalladia  were  published 
after  1517,  one  at  Seville  in  1520,  and  the  other  at  Seville  in 
1520  or  at  Naples  in  1524.  We  have  no  evidence  that  he  ever 
returned  to  Spain,  and  the  date  of  his  death  is  unknown. 

He  explains  the  meaning  of  Propalladia  as  "  the  first  things 
of  Pallas  ",  but  this  does  not  mean  that  the  compositions  in- 
cluded in  that  volume  are  the  fruits  of  his  youth.  Those  that 


ROMANTIC  COMEDY  89 

can  be  dated  were  written  between  1512  and  1517.  As  the 
first  course  (antipasto)  of  this  intellectual  feast,  he  serves 
forty-three  short  lyrical  pieces.  By  far  the  most  significant 
of  these  are  the  sdtira  and  third  capitulo  in  which,  with  rapier- 
like  thrusts,  he  lays  bare  the  seething  corruption  of  Rome. 
Here  he  appears  in  the  role  of  a  stern  moralist,  which  ill  ac- 
cords with  the  easy-going  tolerance  exhibited  in  plays  like 
the  Comedia  Serafina.  "  Rome  is  a  school  for  sin ",  he 
writes;  "  where  no  evil  is  left  undone".  "  Reason  and  kind- 
ness are  out  of  fashion;  faith  and  love  are  dead."  Only  the 
dishonest  triumph.  "  The  world  is  their  Paradise  and  money 
is  their  god  ".  As  a  master  of  invective,  Naharro  has  scarcely 
an  equal  in  Castilian  literature.  The  fact  that  the  volume 
containing  this  bitter  denunciation  of  ecclesiastical  corruption 
was  published  with  a  letter  from  the  Pope  himself  who  speaks 
of  the  "  elegant  compositions  "  of  his  "  beloved  son  "  furnishes 
an  interesting  commentary  on  a  certain  kind  of  tolerance  at 
Rome  in  the  early  years  of  the  sixteenth  century. 

Next  in  order  of  merit  are  compositions,  already  referred 
to,  in  honor  of  Gonsalvo  de  Cordoba  and  Pedro  Manrique  de 
Lara,  in  which  he  gives  expression  to  his  ardent  patriotism. 
His  love  poems  are  agreeable,  but  are  lacking  in  warmth.  In 
all  of  his  verses,  with  the  exception  of  three  sonnets  in  Italian, 
he  employs  the  traditional  Spanish  measures.  In  view  of  his 
acquaintance  with  Italian  literature,  it  is  perhaps  surprising 
that  he  did  not  make  the  experiment  of  introducing  the  hen- 
decasyllable  into  Castilian  which  was  realized  a  decade  later 
by  Boscan. 

In  the  Prohemio  or  prologue  to  the  Propalladia,  Torres 
Naharro  initiates  dramatic  criticism  in  Spanish  literature.' 
After  modestly  stating  his  desire  to  publish  in  correct  form 
his  plays  which  were  circulating  in  unauthorized  versions,  he 
refers  briefly  to  his  lyrical  verses  and  then  quotes  a  few  opin- 
ions of  the  ancients  concerning  comedy.  He  distinguishes 
between  comedy  as  the  representation  of  civil  and  private 
fortune,  without  peril  of  life,  as  distinguished  from  tragedy, 


90  SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

which  occupies  itself  with  heroic  fortune  in  adversity,  and 
cites  Cicero's  definition  that  comedy  is  "  a  copy  of  life,  a 
mirror  of  custom  and  a  reflection  of  truth  ".  The  poet  Acron, 
to  whom  certain  scholia  on  Horace  were  incorrectly  ascribed, 
is  mentioned  as  authority  for  a  sixfold  classification  of  com- 
edies, and  also  for  the  four  parts  into  which  a  comedy  is 
divided.  He  agrees  with  Horace  that  the  five-act  division  is 
necessary,  and  that  decorum  should  be  preserved. 

Having  thus  paid  his  respects  to  classical  authority,  he  pro- 
ceeds to  discuss  comedy  on  the  basis  of  his  own  judgment  and 
experience.  "  'Comedy  ",  he  writes,  "  is  an  ingenious  arrange- 
ment of  notable  incidents,  ending  happily,  and  in  dialogue  ". 
"  The  division  into  five  acts  not  only  seems  to  me  good,  but 
also  very  necessary,  although  I  call  them  jornadas,  because  they 
seem  to  me  more  like  resting-places  than  any  thing  else ". 
Naharro  was  the  first  to  use  the  word  Jornada  as  a  substitute 
for  act.  Whether  he  invented  the  term  or  merely  translated 
the  Italian  giornata,  which  was  occasionally  employed  in  this 
sense  in  the  Italian  sacre  rappresentazioni,1  we  cannot  say. 
At  all  events,  the  claim  made  by  Juan  de  la  Cueva  in  his 
Exemplar  poetico  that  he  first  used  the  word,  is  obviously  in- 
correct. 

A  play  should  contain  from  six  to  twelve  characters,  he  tells 
us,  and  propriety  must  be  observed  by  assigning  to  each  his 
proper  place.  He  proposes  an  interesting  classification  of 
comedies,  namely,  the  comedia  a  noticia,  based  upon  some- 
thing actually  seen,  and  akin  to  our  comedy  of  manners,  and 
the  comedia  a  fantasia,  based  upon  fictitious  material,  but  with 
an  appearance  of  truth,  and  which  may  be  translated  romantic 
comedy. 

Seven  plays,  namely,  the  Comedia  Soldadesca,  Comedid 
Tinellaria,  Comedia  Trofea,  Comedia,  Serafina,  Comedia  Hi~ 
menea,  Comedia  Jacinta  and  Dialogo  del  nascimiento,  including 
the  Adicion  del  dialog o,  are  contained  in  the  volume  entitled 

*A.  L.  Stiefel,  Zeitschrift  fiir  vefgleichende  Literaturgeschichte, 
vol.  v,  1892,  p.  487. 


ROMANTIC  COMEDY  91 

Propdladia,  published  at  Naples  in  1517.  The  form  of  the 
titles  is  derived  from  Plautus.  In  the  introito  to  the  Comedid 
Tinellaria  we  are  told  that  the  title  comes  from  tinelo  as  the 
Asinaria  of  Plautus  from  asinus. 

Each  of  these  plays  is  preceded  by  a  prologue  or  introito 
which  concludes  in  every  case  with  a  fairly  detailed  summary 
of  the  plot.  The  latter  was  necessary  because  dramatic  art 
had  not  advanced  far  enough  to  present  a  series  of  scenes  that 
would  be  intelligible  to  an  audience  without  explanation.  The 
prologue  is  recited  by  a  rude  shepherd  who  sometimes  play- 
fully greets  his  audience  or  expresses  surprise  on  finding  him- 
self in  such  a  distinguished  gathering.  His  function  is  to  en- 
tertain, and  for  this  he  resorts  to  broad  farce.  In  some  he 
relates  with  relish  a  lewd  escapade,  while  in  others  he  con- 
tents himself  with  narrating  his  accomplishments.  He  with- 
draws from  the  stage  after  reciting  his  lines  and  does  not 
reappear. 

The  origin  of  this  prologue  is  difficult  to  determine.  Since 
the  author  was  undoubtedly  acquainted  with  classical  comedy, 
it  is  natural  to  consider  the  prologues  of  Plautus  and  Terence 
as  the  source,  as  Menendez  y  Pelayo  and  others  have  done, 
but  this  new  form  of  prologue  is  more  dramatic  and  more  per- 
sonal than  its  possible  classical  models.  The  term  introitcr 
seems  to  lead  us  to  the  liturgical  or  religious  drama,  but  the 
prologue  as  used  by  Naharro  has  little  in  common  with  the 
Annunziazione  recited  by  an  angel  in  the  sacre  rappresen- 
tasioni.  In  considering  the  source,  we  must  not  forget  that 
Encina's  Placida  y  Vitoriano  also  contains  a  prologue  recited 
by  a  shepherd,  and  that  this  play  was  in  all  probability  written 
and  performed  in  Italy.  We  know  comparatively  little  con- 
cerning popular  Italian  comedies  of  the  beginning  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  but  it  is  an  interesting  fact  that  a  number 
of  the  farces  of  Giovan  Giorgio  Alione  contain  a  prologue 
called  introito  x  which  has  many  points  in  common  with  those 

1Stiefel,  Literaturblatt  fur  germanische  und  romanische  Philologie, 
vol.  xxiv,  1903,  p.  126. 


g2  SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

written  by  Torres  Naharro.  It  seems  probable  to  me  that  the 
Spanish  poet  followed  the  example  of  both  the  classical  and 
the  religious  drama  of  Italy  in  introducing  some  statement  of 
the  argument  as  a  prologue,  and  then  added  a  dramatic  mono- 
logue consisting  of  humorous  personal  experiences  which  was 
probably  a  part  of  the  repertory  of  the  Spanish  juglar  and 
which  developed  in  France  into  an  independent  genre.  The 
burlesque  references  to  details  of  the  Church  service,  found  in 
the  prologues  to  the  Comedia  Serafina  and  Comedia  Trofea, 
may  indicate  a  relationship  with  the  popular  ceremony  of  the 
Boy  Bishop. 

It  need  cause  no  surprise  that  these  plays,  written  in  Spanish, 
should  have  been  performed  at  Rome  and  Naples.  Bernar- 
dino Carvajal,  the  author's  patron  in  Rome,  had  Spanish  affi- 
liations, and  Spanish  ecclesiastics  and  diplomats,  with  theiri 
retinues,  formed  an  important  part  of  the  exclusive  society  of 
Rome.  In  aristocratic  circles  at  Naples,  Spanish  seems  tot 
have  been  used  as  generally  as  Italian.  The  Dialogo  del  nas~ 
cimiento,  Comedia  Soldadesca,  Comedia  Trofea  and  the 
Comedia  Tinellaria  were  performed  at  Rome,  and  while  we 
cannot  be  sure  whether  the  other  plays  were  presented  in 
Rome  or  Naples,  in  either  city  an  aristocratic  audience  could 
understand  the  plays  of  Torres  Naharro  as  well  as  it  could 
read  the  many  Spanish  books  that  were  being  published  in 
Italy.  In  dealing  with  an  audience  that  was  practically  bi- 
lingual, the  author  did  not  hesitate  to  introduce  Italian  char- 
acters speaking  that  language,  and  Catalan  was  also  employed 
without  apology  or  explanation  in  the  Comedia  Serafina.  To) 
add  to  this  linguistic  medley,  maccaronic  Latin,  Portuguese, 
and  an  almost  unintelligible  French,  were  occasionally  used 
for  comic  effect.  It  has  been  suggested  that  this  use  of  two 
or  more  languages,  which  was  fairly  common  in  Ipter  Italian 
plays,  was  suggested  to  Naharro  by  the  farces  of  Giovan 
Giorgio  Alione,  but  it  is  difficult  to  explain  how  those  com- 
positions, composed  in  northern  Italy,  could  have  come  to 
the  attention  of  the  Spanish  dramatist  at  Rome  or  Naples. 


ROMANTIC  COMEDY  93 

Aside  from  the  date  of  publication  of  the  Pro  palladia,  we 
have  little  evidence  to  aid  us  in  determining  in  what  year  these 
plays  were  written  or  performed,  and  their  chronological  order 
is  likewise  uncertain.  Only  the  date  of  performance  of  the 
Comedia  Trofea,  already  discussed,  can  be  approximately  es- 
tablished. We  might  assume  that  the  Dialogo  del  nascimiento, 
which  resembles  in  some  respects  the  Christmas  plays  of 
Encina  and  Fernandez,  was  written  before  Naharro  went  to 
Italy,  but  it  shows  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  Rome  and 
on  internal  evidence  can  be  dated  after  April,  1512. 

Among  the  first  dramatic  works  of  Torres  Naharro,  we  may 
place  the  Comedia  Tinellaria  and  Comedia  Soldadesca,  both 
of  which  were  printed  separately  as  well  as  in  the  Propalladia. 
Classified  by  their  author  as  comedias  a  noticia,  these  present, 
without  artifice  or  plot,  a  series  of  disconnected  scenes  de- 
signed to  portray  a  certain  social  milieu.  The  suelta  edition 
of  the  Comedia  Tinellaria  is  dedicated  to  Bernardino  Car- 
vajal,  the  Cardinal  of  Santa  'Cruz,  and  in  the  prologue  the 
author  states  that  after  the  play  had  been  performed  before 
the  Pope  and  Monsenor  de  Medicis,  his  patron,  Carvajal  had 
expressed  a  desire  to  see  it,  and  then  asked  the  author  why  he 
did  not  publish  it.  This  statement  is  interesting  since  it  shows 
that  Giulio  de'  Medici  had  already  shown  some  favor  to  the 
poet.  The  latter's  relationship  to  Bernardino  Carvajal  also 
seems  to  be  proved  by  a  reference  in  the  Comedia  Soldadesca 
to  an  Andalusian  soldier  who  was  in  the  service  of  a  chamber- 
lain of  Cardinal  of  Santa  Cruz,  and  which  is  believed  to  be 
an  allusion  to  Naharro  himself. 

Few  documents  of  the  period  have  greater  historical  and 
human  interest  than  this  picture  of  the  tinelo  or  servants' 
•dining-room  of  a  Porporato.  From  the  first  scene,  in  which 
Barrabas,  the  chief  steward,  shows  cynical  disregard  for 
•his  master's  property  and  a  desire  to  exploit  him  to  the  utmost 
for  his  own  advantage,  until  the  drunken  orgy  of  the  last  act, 
we  have  an  amazing  picture  of  petty  greed  and  maladministra- 
tion. Not  only  does  the  good  name  of  the  cardinal  suffer! 


94  SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

from  the  rapacity  of  his  trusted  officers.  The  true  victims 
are  the  underlings,  who  are  dependent  for  their  sustenance 
upon  the  cardinal's  bounty,  and  who  are  nearly  starved  by  the 
wretched  fare  that  is  served  to  them.  There  is  tragical  in- 
tensity in  the  chorus  of  protests  against  the  quality  of  food 
and  wine  that  we  find  in  the  third  act.  When  not  complain- 
ing about  the  food,  these  petty  servants  quarrel  over  ques- 
tions of  national  honour  and  dishonour  in  language  that  is 
far  from  parliamentary,  and  in  one  of  the  most  amusing 
scenes  a  Portuguese,  Andalusian,  Valencian,  Biscayan  and 
Frenchman  discuss,  each  in  his  own  tongue,  the  relative 
merits  of  Lisbon,  Seville,  Valencia,  Bilbao  and  Paris. 

-We  can  readily  appreciate  the  virulence  of  this  satire  which 
was  designed,  we  are  informed  in  the  prologue,  to  show  the 
cardinals  what  actually  went  on  in  their  kitchens.  The  chief 
figures  must  have  been  recognized  by  the  audience,  but  un- 
fortunately we  have  not  sufficient  evidence  to  identify  them. 
We  do  not  know  who  was  the  prototype  of  Barrabas,  whoi 
rose  in  three  years  from  the  post  of  scullion  to  that  of  ad- 
ministrator of  an  important  household.  The  figure  is  des- 
cribed with  such  bitterness  that  we  may  assume  a  personal 
grudge  on  the  author's  part.  The  identity  of  the  Cardinal  de 
San  lano  is  likewise  uncertain.  On  several  occasions  during 
the  play  he  is  referred  to  as  the  next  Pope,  and  since  this  pro- 
phecy was  also  made  by  Torres  Naharro  in  one  of  his  lyrical 
pieces  regarding  a  cardinal  who  has  been  identified  as  Giulio 
de'  Medici,  it  is  possible  that  the  future  Clement  VII,  who} 
actually  witnessed  the  play,  and  whom  the  author  mentions  as 
his  patron  in  the  suelta  edition,  may  have  been  pictured  as  the 
master  of  this  infamous  pack  of  rascals. 

The  Comedia  Soldadesca  has  less  dramatic  interest.  This 
presents  a  Spanish  captain  who  is  recruiting  soldiers  for  the 
Pope's  service.  Some  of  those  he  enlists  are  veterans  who 
have  taken  part,  under  Gonsalvo  de  Cordoba,  in  the  famous 
victories  at  Cerignola  and  Garigliano  (1503)  and  who  have 
also  fought  at  Bugia  and  Tripoli  (1510).  Peace  is  irksome 


ROMANTIC  COMEDY  95 

to  them  and  they  long  for  war  "  as  do  the  poor  for  summer  ". 
They  are  joined  by  a  poverty-stricken  friar  and  others,  who 
swagger  about  with  lofty  bearing  as  soon  as  they  carry  arms, 
and  treat  in  a  high-handed  fashion  an  Italian  tavern-keeper 
who  is  unable  to  understand  their  language.  Many  Italian 
plays  contain  the  figure  of  the  Spanish  braggart  soldier  which, 
after  making  due  allowance  for  national  prejudice,  serve  td 
complement  this  picture  given  to  us  by  Naharro.  Allusions 
to  the  new  break  in  relations  of  the  Spanish  king  with  the 
French,  and  the  preparations  of  the  Pope  for  war,  seem  ta 
refer  to  the  invasion  of  northern  Italy  by  Francis  I  in  the 
autumn  of  1515. 

The  Comedia  Jacinta,  probably  the  earliest  of  the  comedias 
a  fantasia,  betrays  the  hand  of  a  beginner.  Three  gentlemen, 
Jacinto,  Precioso  and  Fenicio,  disillusioned  with  life,  have 
traveled  from  Germany,  Rome  and  Spain,  respectively,  in 
search  of  adventures.  They  are  stopped  in  turn  by  Pagano, 
a  servant  of  a  lady  of  great  virtue  and  nobility  named  Divina, 
who  persuades  them  to  present  themselves  before  his  mistress. 
As  they  proceed  to  the  lady's  castle,  they  express  their  high 
admiration  for  women,  attributing  to  them  everything  good  in 
life.  Divina  receives  the  travelers  courteously,  listens  sympa- 
thetically to  the  recital  of  their  sufferings,  and  offers  to  accept 
one  of  them  as  a  husband,  and  the  other  two  as  brothers.  It 
is  evident  that  the  play  has  some  allegorical  significance,  but 
whether  it  refers  to  some  political  event  or  was  performed  as 
a  compliment  to  some  lady  here  personified  as  Divina,  is  not 
known.  It  seems  likely  that  in  the  person  of  Precioso  the 
author  voices  his  contempt  for  the  corruption  in  manners  at 
Rome. 

The  Comedia  Serafina  describes  the  predicament  of  the 
young  Floristan  on  finding  himself  with  two  wives,  a  Valen- 
cian  demi-mondaine  named  Serafina,  and  Orfea,  an  Italian 
lady  whom  he  had  married  at  his  father's  command.  Sera- 
fina, accompanied  by  her  maid  Dorosia,  follows  her  erring 
husband  to  Rome  and  upbraids  him,  in  impassioned  Catalan, 


96 


SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 


for  his  infidelity.  Floristan  generously  assumes  all  the  blame, 
which  is  self-evident,  renews  to  her  his  pledge  of  undying 
love  and  declares  that  either  he  or  Orfea  must  die.  After 
due  consideration,  he  finally  settles  upon  the  latter  alternative. 
He  confides  his  purpose  to  the  friar  Teodoro,  who  cynically 
promises  his  aid,  but  insists  that  the  lady  must  first  have  an 
opportunity  to  confess.  Floristan  tenderly  explains  to  Orfea 
why  her  death  is  necessary,  and  she,  like  a  dutiful  wife,  par- 
dons her  husband  and  prays  to  God  for  mercy.  The  denoue- 
ment is  brought  about  by  Teodoro's  suggestion  that  since 
Orfea's  marriage  to  Floristan  had  not  been  consummated,  she 
might  marry  Policiano,  Floristan's  brother,  who  had  returned 
quite  opportunely  to  Rome,  and  who  had  long  been  in  love 
with  her. 

We  need  not  worry  about  moral  considerations  in  this  play 
which  is  merely,  as  Menedez  y  Pelayo  suggested,  a  bufonada. 
There  is  real  comedy  in  the  contrast  between  the  exalted 
sentimentality  and  abominable  egoism  of  Floristan.  The 
lackey,  Lenicio,  is  one  of  the  most  successful  portraits  in 
Naharro's  gallery  of  rogues.  He  possesses  all  the  "  social 
consciousness  "  of  the  later  picaros.  When  his  master  Flor- 
istan accuses  him  of  lukewarm  attachment  to  his  interests, 
Lenicio  replies  with  uncommon  frankness,  "  You  masters  still 
think  that  your  servants  are  slaves.  I  never  go  to  market 
without  stopping  at  a  brothel  to  leave  what  I  have  pilfered 
from  you  ".  Floristan  asks  helplessly  whether  he  realizes  the 
enormity  of  his  sin,  and  Lenicio  answers,  "  A  servant  is  a  fool 
who  waits  for  his  master  to  pay  when  he  himself  can  collect 
his  due ".  Teodoro,  who  advises  so  piously  in  maccaronic 
Latin,  is  a  hypocrite  of  the  same  type  as  Fra  Timoteo  in 
Machiavelli's  La  Mandragola.  In  spite  of  defects  in  con- 
struction, this  play  is  a  good  example  of  well-sustained  farce. 

In  the  Comedia  Himenea,  incidents  that  have  become  the 
commonplaces  of  romantic  comedy  made  their  first  appearance 
on  any  stage.  The  infatuation  of  a  gallant  for  a  young  lady, 
a  first  interview  with  musical  accompaniment,  the  jealous 


ROMANTIC  COMEDY  97 

watchfulness  of  the  lady's  brother  who  swears  to  avenge  him- 
self upon  the  betrayer  of  his  honour,  the  rendezvous  with  the 
exchange  of  vows  of  undying  love,  brusquely  interrupted  by 
the  brother,  who  after  the  momentary  flight  of  the  lover,  de- 
mands the  lady's  life  as  a  price  of  her  dishonour,  the  lover's 
return  and  the  offer  of  marriage  which  is  accepted,  these  are 
the  scenes  that  must  have  charmed  by  their  novelty  that  first 
audience,  and  which  even  now  delight  us. 

In  presenting  his  characters,  he  makes  effective  use  of  con- 
trast. The  sentimental  Himeneo,  who  melts  to  tears  at  the 
mere  thought  of  Febea,  has  two  servants,  Eliso  and  Boreas, 
who  are  cynical  regarding  women  and  consider  their  master's 
passion  a  form  of  lunacy  that  permits  them  to  extort  addi- 
tional pay.  Himeneo  fears  nothing  but  a  rebuff  from  his  lady, 
while  his  servants  boast  mi^^lv  of  their  valour  and  leave 
their  master  in  the  lurch  at  the  first  sign  of  danger.  Con- 
trast is  again  the  motive  in  the  love-making  scene  between 
Boreas  and  Febea's  maid  Doresta,  which  playfully  and  in  a 
lower  key  reproduces  the  incidents  of  the  first  interview  of 
Himeneo  and  Febea,  a  situation  that  recurs  in  countless  plays 
of  the  seventeenth  century. 

The  argument  of  the  Comedia  Himenea  is  derived  from  the 
twelfth,  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  acts  of  the  Comedia  de 
Calisto  y  Melibea.  In  both  versions,  the  action  is  limited  to 
twenty-four  hours  and  except  for  the  difference  in  the  denoue- 
ment, the  incidents  agree  in  general  outlines.  Himeneo,  like 
Calisto,  is  a  sentimental,  somewhat  ingenuous  lover;  Febea 
and  Melibea  have  the  same  charming  simplicity  of  character 
that  is  capable  of  heroism  when  the  occasion  demands  it; 
Eliso  and  Boreas  correspond  closely  to  Parmeno  and  Sem- 
pronio.  With  all  these  similarities,  however,  the  play  should 
not  be  regarded  as  merely  a  dramatization  of  a  part  of  the 
Comedia  de  Calisto  y  Melibea.  Naharro  saw  the  dramatic 
possibilities  of  the  central  situation,  added  the  character  of 
Febea's  brother,  and  portrayed  in  his  own  language  that  sup- 
remely interesting  conflict  of  love  and  honour  which  anticipated 


^g     SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

by  nearly  a  hundred  years  a  situation  frequently  found  in  the 
comedia  de  capa  y  espada. 

With  the  Comedia  Aquilana,  we  are  still  in  the  world  of 
romance.  Aquilano,  Prince  of  Hungary,  disguised  as  a 
gardener,  woos  Felicina,  a  princess  of  the  kingdom  of  Leon. 
He  indignantly  rejects  his  servant's  suggestion  that  he  make 
known  his  identity,  because  by  his  romantic  code,  the  prize 
must  be  won  by  the  ardour  of  his  love,  or  not  at  all.  One 
evening  the  princess  grants  him  an  interview  in  the  garden, 
but  as  he  unburdens  his  tortured  soul  of  its  secret,  the  princess 
hears  a  noise  and  brusquely  dismisses  him.  The  oversensi- 
tive Aquilano  swoons  and  is  found  almost  lifeless  by  twc* 
gardeners.  He  tells  them  that  he  is  mortally  ill,  for  Cupid 
has  pierced  his  heart,  and  has  made  a  wound  that  will  never 
heal.  The  gardeners  can  understand  nothing  of  this  rhetoric, 
and  make  witty  comments  concerning  his  illness,  and  the  mad- 
ness of  gentlemen  on  many  occasions. 

King  Bermudo  is  alarmed  over  his  serious  condition,  but  the 
most  celebrated  doctors  fail  to  diagnose  the  cause  of  his 
malady  until  one  of  them  adopts  the  expedient  employed  in 
the  case  of  Antiochus,  as  related  by  Plutarch,  and  discovers 
that  Aquilano's  pulse  quickens  at  the  sight  of  Felicina.  When 
the  king  learns  of  this,  he  determines  to  put  Aquilano  to> 
death,  and  Felicina  contemplates  suicide,  but  the  prince's 
identity  is  established  by  his  servant,  and  Bermudo  gladly  con- 
sents to  the  marriage  of  the  young  lovers. 

The  Comedia  Aquilana  was  first  printed,  so  far  as  we  know, 
at  Seville  in  1520,  or  at  Naples  in  1524.  The  plot  bears  a 
slight  resemblance  to  Gil  Vicente's  Comedia  do  viuvo,  but  the 
question  of  priority  is  difficult  to  settle,  since  the  date  of 
Vicente's  play,  while  generally  ascribed  to  the  year  1514,  is 
disputed.  A  lover  disguised  as  a  gardener  is  also  found  in 
the  Libro  segundo  de  Palmerin  de  Oliva  and  in  Vicente's 
tragicomedy  of  Dom  Duardos.  The  Pieta  dj  Amore  of 
Mariano  Maniscalco  has  been  suggested  as  a  possible  Italian, 
source.  The  gardeners,  who  contribute  the  farcical  element,. 


ROMANTIC  COMEDY  99 

closely  resemble  the  shepherds  of  the  pastoral  plays.  The 
Comedia  Aquilana  has  good  lyrical  qualities,  but  lacks  the 
sobriety  and  compact  construction  of  the  Comedia  Himenea. 

The  Comedia  Calamita  more  nearly  approaches  classical 
comedy  than  any  other  play  of  Torres  Naharro,  and  also  con- 
tains the  best  constructed  plot.  Young  Floribundo  falls  madly 
in  love  with  Calamita,  a  girl  of  apparently  humble  condition, 
thereby  incurring  the  displeasure  of  Euticio,  his  father. 
Through  the  aid  of  his  servant,  Jusquino,  Floribundo  succeeds 
in  entering  the  house  of  'Calamita,  declares  to  her  his  love, 
and  readily  agrees  to  the  condition  of  marriage  which  she 
imposes.  Euticio  is  very  angry  when  he  hears  of  what  he 
considers  his  son's  crowning  act  of  folly,  and  threatens  to  take 
his  life,  but  a  solution  is  brought  about  by  the  discovery  that 
Calamita  is  the  long-lost  daughter  of  a  wealthy  Sicilian  gentle- 
man and  an  old  friend  of  Euticio.  The  sub-plot  is  made  up 
of  the  marital  difficulties  of  Torcazo,  who  is  supposed  to  be 
Calamita's  brother,  and  his  wife  Libina.  Torcazo  is  an  arch- 
fool  who  is  unable  to  detect  Libina's  infidelities,  but  who  can 
effectively  employ  a  club  to  enforce  his  arguments  with  her. 
These  two  elements  are  well  knit  together,  and  the  play  gives 
an  impression  of  dramatic  unity. 

Complications  arising  from  mistaken  identity  with  the  inevi- 
table anagnorisis  at  the  end  are  common  in  classical  comedy^ 
and  the  main  plot  bears  a  general  resemblance  to  the  Heauton- 
timorumenos  of  Terence.  Still  closer  is  the  analogy  to  Barto- 
lomeo  Zamberti's  Latin  play  of  the  year  1504  entitled  Comedia 
Dolotechne.  Torcazo  is  the  type  of  complacent  husband, 
easily  imposed  upon  by  his  wife  and  others,  who  appears  so 
frequently  in  early  Italian  novelle  and  jest  books.  He  offers 
many  points  of  resemblance  with  Boccaccio's  Calandrino  and" 
with  Martin  de  Villalba  in  Lope  de  Rueda's  Tercer  paso* 
Torcazo  also  recalls  Calandro  in  La  Calandria  (1513)  of 
Bernardo  Dovizi  da  Bibbiena,  and  it  has  been  pointed  out  that 
Jusquino's  instructions  to  Torcazo  how  to  feign  death,  in  the 
fifth  act  of  Calamita,  are  derived  from  the  ninth  scene  of  the 


loo        SPANISH  DRAMA  BEPOKi-  i.on-  />/•: 

Mvoiul  act  of  /  u  (  ',;/tim/n'tr.  Two  other  scenes  in  the  (\ihunitii 
seem  to  prove  the  author's  acquaintance  with  Cardinal  Bib- 
biena's  celebrated  play.  Since  La  Ccdandria  was  not  published 
until  1521,  and  Calamita  was  probably  printed  in  1520,  it  is 
likely  that  Torres  Naharro  witnessed  its  performance  in  1513, 
and  incorporated  some  of  the  incidents  from  memory  into  the 
t'a/awito. 

We  do  not  have  sufficiently  complete  information  concern- 
ing the  Italian  drama  in  the  first  years  of  the  sixteenth  century 
to  accurately  measure  the  extent  of  Naharro's  indebtedness  to 
Italian  sources.  There  is  no  doubt  that  he  was  aware  of  the 
performances  of  Plautine  plays  in  Italian  at  Ferrara  and 
Florence.  We  must  remember,  however,  that  the  only  regular 
Italian  comedies  written  or  performed  before  1520  were  La 
Cassaria  and  I  Sufipositi  of  Ariosto,  Cardinal  Bibbiena's  La 
Calandria  and  Machiavelli's  Mandrogola.  While  we  can 
readily  estimate  his  obligations  to  these  plays,  the  question  of 
the  influence  of  the  popular  farces  and  commedie  rustical*, 
performed  at  Rome  and  Naples  during  the  first  two  decades  of 
the  century,  still  awaits  solution. 

While  Encina  was  the  founder  of  the  Spanish  drama, 
Tones  Xaharro  \\.is  Spain's  first  real  dramatist.  In  place  of 
the  dainty  triviality  of  Encina' s  pastoral  eclogues  and  the 
rhetorical  versified  monologues  of  the  Egloga  de  fm  pastores 
and  Egloga  d«  Placida  y  Vitoriano,  in  which  the  protagonists 
studiously  avoid  one  another  through  fear  of  terminating  the 
play  too  soon,  Naharro  offers  us  a  real  human  interest,  a  con- 
flict of  wills  and,  at  times,  a  psychological  development  of 
character.  Family  honour,  which  was  destined  to  furnish  so 
many  dramatic  situations  in  the  following  century,  made  its 
first  appearance  on  the  stage  in  the  Comedia  Himenta.  He 
did  not  disdain  the  use  of  farcical  material,  but  his  conception 
of  comedy  was  more  reflective  and  subtle  than  that  of  his 

predecessors,      His  lackeys  are  the  very  antithesis  of  the  N\'v. 

Keen-witted,  sophisticated  opportunists,  they  anticipate  both 
Lazarillo  de  Tormes,  and  the  graeioso  of  Lope  de  Vega.  His 


ROMANTIC  COMEDY  IOI 

dramatic  work  is  uneven,  but  in  the  Comedia  Himenea,  Come- 
dia  Aquilana  and  Comedia  Calamita,  Spain  had  its  first  heroic 
comedies  and  comedias  de  capa  y  espada. 

While  it  is  unlikely  that  any  play  of  Torres  Naharro  was 
performed  in  Spain,  a  number  of  editions  of  the  Propalladia, 
unexpurgated  and  expurgated,  and  imitations,  especially  during 
the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth  century,  prove  that  his  plays 
were  known  in  his  native  country.  These  imitations  may 
easily  be  recognized  by  their  division  into  five  jornadas,  their 
composition  in  coplas  de  pie  quebrado,  their  use  of  a  comic  pro- 
logue, and  by  subject  matter  derived  directly  or  indirectly 
from  the  Comedia  Himenea  or  the  Celestina. 

The  two  latter  compositions  *  are  responsible  for  what  little 
inspiration  is  found  in  the  two  plays  of  Jaime  de  Giiete  or 
Huete,  entitled  Comedia  Tesorina  and  Comedia  Vidriana.  Of 
the  first,  we  have  only  an  undated  suelta  and  an  edition  of 
1551,  and  of  the  second  only  an  undated  suelta.  Nothing  is 
known  of  the  author,  save  that  he  was  an  Aragonese,  a  fact 
which  is  evident  from  his  language.  Both  plays  are  written 
in  five  acts,  in  coplas  de  pie  quebrado,  and  are  preceded  by  a 
comic  prologue  in  the  manner  of  Naharro.  The  Comedid 
Tesorina  presents  the  wooing  of  Lucina  by  Tesorino,  who  by 
a  clever  ruse,  gains  access  to  her  house  and  then  secures  the 
services  of  Fray  Vegecio  to  unite  them  in  marriage.  The 
friar's  lisping  speech  adds  a  touch  of  humor  to  the  ceremony, 
which  ends  in  a  witty  sermdn  de  amores.  The  anxiety  of 
Timbreo  over  his  daughter's  disappearance  is  somewhat  re- 
lieved by  Vegecio's  explanation,  and  he  is  finally  reconciled  to 
the  marriage,  Tesorino  is  an  insipid  Himeneo;  Lucina  shows 
no  trace  of  Febea's  innate  delicacy;  Pinedo  is  a  dull-witted 
Boreas,  and  Vegecio  recalls  the  friar  of  the  Comedia  Serafina. 
The  feminine  counterpart  of  the  bobo  appears  in  the  indolent 
and  saucy  Citeria,  A  negress  also  appears  in  the  fifth  act 

'Menendez  y  Pelayo,  Orlgenet  de  la  novela,  vol.  Hi,  p.  cxlviii,  men- 
tions an  anonymous  Comedia  Clariana,  published  in  1522,  which  appears 
from  the  rubric  to  be  based  upon  material  taken  from  the  Celestina. 


102    SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

for  the  purpose  of  creating  dramatic  suspense  by  her  in- 
coherent account  to  Timbreo  of  his  daughter's  elopement,  a 
figure  frequently  employed  for  the  same  purpose  by  Lope  de 
Rueda.  The  play  may  be  regarded  as  an  unintelligent  imita- 
tion of  the  Comedia  Himenea,  with  which  it  has  a  few  verbal 
similarities. 

The  Comedia  Vidriana  has  hardly  a  redeeming  quality.  The 
author  adopts  the  chief  incidents  of  the  Celestina,  omitting  the 
figures  of  the  bawd  and  her  infamous  associates,  but  is  plainly 
embarrassed  in  giving  to  these  scenes  dramatic  unity.  New 
characters  are  introduced  at  random,  and  farcical  scenes  are 
added  that  have  no  organic  relationship  to  the  main  plot.  The 
consuming  passion  of  Calisto  becomes  commonplace  in 
Vidriano's  love-making,  and  the  keen  wit  of  Calisto's  servants 
degenerates  into  buffoonery.  As  a  substitute  for  the  tragic 
denouement  of  the  Celestina,  we  have  Vidriano's  attempt  to 
abduct  Leriana  which  is  frustrated  by  the  lady's  father. 
Vidriano  makes  a  lame  excuse  for  his  rash  act  and  makes  an 
offer  of  marriage  to  Leriana,  which  is  acceptable  to  her 
parents. 

The  Comedia  Radiana  of  Agustin  Ortiz,  also  composed  in 
five  acts  of  coplas  de  pie  quebrado,  and  probably  written  be- 
tween the  years  1533  and  I535,1  again  shows  the  influence  of 
the  Comedia  Himenea.  Through  the  aid  of  his  servant  Tur- 
pino,  Cleriano  secures  an  audience  with  Radiana,  who  accepts 
his  love  with  incredible  facility.  The  escape  of  the  lovers  is 
prevented  by  Lireo,  Radiana's  father,  who  swears  to  avenge 
the  injury  to  his  honour  by  taking  their  lives.  A  priest  arrives 
from  nowhere,  who  counsels  moderation  and  obtains  the  con- 
sent of  Lireo  to  the  marriage  ceremony  which  is  straightway 
performed.  The  chief  merit  of  the  play  is  its  brevity.  The 
first  act  consists  entirely  of  Lireo's  laments  for  the  death  of 
his  wife,  probably  suggested  by  the  opening  scene  of  Vicente's 
Comedia  do  viuvo,  and  apparently  was  introduced  for  the  sole 
purpose  of  explaining  the  absence  of  Radiana's  mother.  The 

1  'R.  E.  House,  Modern  Philology,  vol.  vii,  1910,  p.  509. 


ROMANTIC  COMEDY 

heroine  does  not  appear  until  the  fifth  act,  and  there  are  a 
number  of  farcical  scenes  that  have  not  the  remotest  connec- 
tion with  the  rest  of  the  play.  Its  editor  has  pointed  out  a 
few  verbal  similarities  with  the  Comedia  Himenea? 

The  influence  of  Encina,  as  well  as  that  of  the  Celestind 
and  of  Naharro,  is  evident  in  the  Comedia  Tidea  of  Francisco 
de  las  Natas,  a  cleric  of  the  diocese  of  Burgos.  The  only 
edition  known  is  of  the  year  1550,  but  the  date  of  its  composi- 
tion is  probably  considerably  earlier  since  its  author  pub- 
lished a  translation  of  the  second  book  of  the  Aeneid  in  1528, 
and  an  unextant  Comedia  Claudiana  in  1536.  The  love-i 
affairs  of  Tideo  and  Faustina  follow  closely  those  of  Calisto 
and  Melibea,  and  Celestina  herself  plays  a  prominent  role  in 
the  person  of  Beroe.  Tideo  employs  the  same  rhetorical  lan- 
guage as  Vitoriano  in  Encina's  eclogue,  and  an  interlude  in 
the  second  act  recalls  the  Aucto  del  repelon.  The  denouement 
brought  about  by  the  discovery  that  Tideo  is  a  prince  in  dis- 
.guise,  may  indicate  an  acquaintance  with  the  Comedia 
Aquilana.  The  play  contains  a  considerable  amount  of  coarse- 
ness and  irreverence  which  ill  accords  with  the  author's  pro- 
fession, and  which  probably  was  responsible  for  its  appearance 
upon  the  Index  of  1559  and  of  1583.  By  reason  of  its  har- 
monious arrangement  of  scenes,  natural  development  of  the 
action  and  lively  dialogue,  we  may  regard  it  as  the  best  of  the 
series  of  imitations  of  the  Celestina  and  the  Comedia  Himenea. 

In  the  anonymous  Farfa  a  manera  de  tragedia,  printed  at 
Valencia  in  1537,  the  tragical  consequences  of  love  are  pre- 
sented. We  are  told  in  the  prologue  that  the  play  is  based 
upon  an  actual  occurrence,  and  the  author  is  successful  in 
portraying  vividly  the  ardent  passion  of  Torcato  for  Liria, 
and  her  timid  acceptance  of  his  love.  But  their  golden  dreams 
of  happiness  are  frustrated  by  'Carlino,  Liria's  brother,  who 
spies  upon  her  movements  and  convinces  himself  of  her  in- 

1  Menendez  y  Pelayo,  Origenes  de  la  novela,  vol.  iii,  p.  cxlix,  mentioned 
a  Comedia  Rosabella  (1550)  by  Martin  de  Santander  which,  from  the 
Tubric,  appears  to  resemble  somewhat  the  Comedia  Radiana. 


SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

fidelity.  Her  husband,  the  complacent  Gazardo,  refuses  to 
give  credence  to  Carlino's  charges,  but  finally  consents  to  set 
a  trap  for  her  in  the  form  of  a  forged  letter.  When  Torcato 
receives  this  letter,  apparently  signed  by  Liria,  in  which  she 
tells  him  that  the  secret  of  their  relations  has  been  discovered 
and  that  she  no  longer  cares  for  him,  his  joy  is  turned  to  des- 
pair. With  his  own  blood,  he  writes  Liria  a  letter,  blaming 
herself  for  his  death,  and  stabs  himself.  Liria  receives  the 
missive,  finds  the  body  of  Torcato,  and  kills  herself  after 
lamenting  his  death  and  his  lack  of  faith. 

The  influence  of  Torres  Naharro  is  evident  in  the  division 
of  the  play  into  five  acts,  and  the  passion  of  the  two  lovers, 
thwarted  by  the  lady's  brother,  recalls  the  Comedia  Himenea. 
The  stupid  husband,  who  does  not  deserve  Liria's  love,  and  is 
unable  to  perceive  her  infidelity,  recalls  Torcazo  in  the 
Comedia  Caiamita.  At  the  same  time,  the  double  suicide 
resembles  the  Egloga  de  Florida  y  Vitoriano.  The  opening 
scene  has  considerable  poetic  beauty,  and  the  death  of  Torcato 
and  Liria  is  portrayed  with  genuine  feeling.  Although  the 
protagonists  often  express  themselves  in  the  conventional  style 
of  the  sentimental  novels  of  the  day,  the  play  has  a  real  human 
interest. 

There  is  no  reason  to  dispute  the  opinion  of  its  learned 
editor  that  the  Auto  de  Clorindo  is  as  "  execrable  as  can  be 
imagined ".  In  the  opinion  of  Gayangos,  the  single  extant 
edition  was  printed  at  Toledo  in  I535-1  The  rubric  bears  the 
statement,  "  sacado  de  las  obras  del  Captivo  por  Antonio  Diez, 
librero  sordo,  y  en  partes  anadido  y  enmendado  ".  We  have  no 
means  of  establishing  the  identity  of  "  el  Captivo  ",  nor  of  de- 
termining the  additions  made  by  the  "  deaf  bookseller  ".  The 
play  is  written  in  three  acts.  Here  we  have,  not  one  gallant,  but 
two,  who  are  in  love  with  step-sisters.  After  various  incidents 
without  interest,  silly  shepherds'  scenes  and  incantations,  the! 
lovers  succeed  in  abducting  the  young  women  from  a  con- 

1  If  this  date  is  correct,  the  Auto  de  Clorindo  is  the  earliest  Spanish 
play  in  three  acts. 


ROMANTIC  COMEDY 

vent.  It  is  doubtful  whether  the  Spanish  drama  includes  an- 
other play  more  completely  devoid  of  literary  merit. 

We  have  abundant  documentary  evidence  that  throughout 
the  Middle  Ages  weddings  were  occasions  of  merrymaking, 
and  that  the  attendance  of  juglares  was  regarded  as  indispen- 
sable. We  read,  for  example,  in  the  Primera  cronica  general, 
that  at  the  marriage  of  the  daughters  of  the  Cid  to  the  in- 
fantes of  Carrion,  there  were  many  juglares  and  all  the  other 
diversions  that  pertain  to  weddings.  Many  allusions  to  this 
practice  also  occur  in  the  plays  of  Encina,  Fernandez  and 
Vicente.  The  Marquis  of  Santillana  mentions  in  his  well- 
known  Prohemio  the  "  songs  that  are  sung  at  weddings  in 
praise  of  the  bride  and  groom  "  and  we  seem  to  have  a  clue  to 
the  nature  of  these  songs  in  a  composition  of  Encina,  included 
in  the  Cancionero  musical*  which  from  all  appearances  was 
written  for  some  wedding.  It  is  written  in  dialogue  form, 
and  contains  a  reference  to  the  bride's  pedigree,  a  list  of  the 
objects  that  constitute  her  dower  and  a  list  of  the  groom's 
presents.  Apparently  these  wedding  festivities  were  accom- 
panied by  considerable  license,  for  a  decree  of  the  Council  of 
Lugo  (572)  prohibited  members  of  the  clergy  from  witnessing 
"  aliqua  spectacula  in  nuptiis  vel  conviviis  ",  and  this  order  was 
repeated  by  countless  subsequent  Councils.  A,  number  of 
Spanish  plays  of  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth  century  contain 
as  prominent  elements  the  pedigree  of  a  bride  and  bridegroom, 
a  list  of  objects  that  constitute  the  bride's  dower  and  the 
groom's  presents,  a  marriage  ceremony  that  is  usually  per- 
formed with  burlesque  features,  and  a  wedding  song  at  the 
end.  The  nature  of  this  material  allows  us  to  assume  that 
such  plays  were  performed  at  weddings.2 

The  earliest  extant  play  of  this  type,  and  also  the  most  com- 
plete, is  the  Egloga  interlocutoria  of  Diego  de  Avila,  printed 
before  1512.  Here  is  described  the  betrothal  and  marriage 

1  Cancionero  musical  de  los  siglos  XV  y  XVI,  Madrid,  1890,  no.  383. 
*J.  P.  W.  Crawford,  Early  Spanish  Wedding  Plays,  Romanic  Review, 
vol.  xii,  1921. 


I06          SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

of  a  peasant  youth,  Tenorio,  to  Teresa  Turpina,  a  country 
maiden,  through  the  mediation  of  Alonso  Benito,  a  profes- 
sional match-maker  (casamentero) .  The  latter  recites  a 
comic  pedigree  of  the  girl  and  a  long  list  of  articles  that  make 
up  her  dower.  Tenorio's  father  is  not  outdone  in  generosity 
and  promises  in  his  son's  behalf  an  equally  long  list  of  gifts. 
Both  parties  are  satisfied,  and  a  priest,  accompanied  by  a 
sacristan,  performs  a  burlesque  marriage  ceremony.  This) 
diverting  farce  is  dedicated  to  Gonsalvo  de  Cordoba,  and 
must  have  amused  some  aristocratic  gathering  on  the  occasion 
of  a  wedding. 

The  Farsa  de  Costanza  (1522)  by  Cristobal  de  Castillejo, 
may  probably  also  be  classified  as  a  wedding  play.  For  a 
study  of  this  we  are  dependent  upon  an  analysis  of  the  plot 
and  a  few  extracts  made  by  Moratin  from  the  original  manu- 
script before  its  disappearance  in  the  year  1823.  The  play 
consisted  of  seven  acts,  preceded  by  a  prologue  in  Latin  recited 
by  the  god  Hymen.  Two  married  couples  air  their  domestic 
grievances  in  exceedingly  coarse  language,  and  finally  the 
husbands  agree  to  exchange  wives.  A  friar  preaches  a  burles- 
que sermon  de  amores,  and  in  the  last  act  a  priest  pronounces 
the  former  marriages  void  and  re-weds  the  two  couples  ac- 
cording to  the  terms  of  the  exchange. 

The  Farsa  del  matrimonio  of  Diego  Sanchez  de  Badajoz 
specifically  bears  the  rubric  "  para  representar  en  bodas ". 
The  shepherd  who  recites  the  prologue  makes  a  burlesque 
defense  of  marriage  which  is  comparable  in  many  respects  with 
Castillejo's  Sermon  de  amores.  This  is  followed  by  a  bitter 
dispute  between  a  husband  and  wife  regarding  the  relative 
superiority  of  man  and  woman,  which  is  finally  decided  in 
favour  of  man  by  a  friar  who  acts  as  referee.  The  friar  then 
conceives  the  idea  of  marrying  his  servant  to  Menga,  daughtef 
of  the  disputants,  in  the  belief  that  he  alone  will  profit  by  the 
arrangement.  After  the  ceremony  is  performed  and  the  in- 
tentions of  the  friar  are  discovered,  his  summary  punishment 
is  described  with  brutal  realism.  Clerical  satire  could  scarcely 


ROMANTIC  COMEDY  107 

be  more  virulent.  This  play  was  included  in  the  volume  en- 
titled Recopilacion  en  metro,  and  was  also  published  in  a 
suelta  edition  at  Medina  del  Campo  in  1603. 

Gil  Vicente's  delightful  Comedia  do  viuvo,  written  entirely 
in  Castilian,  and  probably  performed  in  1514,  is  a  wedding 
play  of  an  entirely  different  type.  A  widower  mourns  the 
death  of  his  wife,  and  neither  finds  comfort  in  the  sympathetic 
words  of  a  friar,  nor  in  the  jests  of  a  friend  who  is  unable  to 
rid  himself  of  a  shrewish  mate.  A  young  nobleman,  named 
Rosvel,  falls  in  love  with  the  widower's  two  daughters,  Paula 
and  Melicia,  and  obtains  from  him  employment  as  a  workman. 
From  this  point  of  vantage  he  courts  the  young  women.  He 
wishes  to  marry  one  of  them,  but  both  are  so  charming  that 
he  is  unable  to  express  a  preference.  This  embarrassing  ques- 
tion is  submitted  to  the  young  Prince  John,  who  was  a  specta- 
tor, and  who  decides  that  Rosvel  shall  marry  Paula.  Gilberto, 
Rosvel's  brother,  arrives  opportunely,  and  wins  the  hand  of 
Melicia.  The  father  consents  with  some  reluctance  to  the 
betrothal  of  his  daughters,  and  a  priest  enters  who  performs 
the  marriage  ceremony.  This  is  followed  by  a  brief  sermon  in 
which  the  newly-married  couples  are  reminded  of  the  origin 
of  marriage  and  the  Scriptural  injunction  to  "  increase  and 
multiply ".  It  is  a  work  of  real  beauty,  surpassed  by  no 
Spanish  play  of  the  first  half  of  the  century  in  poetic  charm. 

Gil  Vicente  realized,  as  no  Castilian  writer  of  his  time,  the 
dramatic  value  of  the  material  presented  in  the  romances  of 
chivalry.  The  idealization  of  love  and  personal  courage  with 
its  romantic  setting  was  peculiarly  appropriate  for  representa- 
tion before  a  Court  whose  social  code  had  been  moulded  by 
traditions  of  knighthood,  and  in  this  world  of  fancy  Vicente's 
poetic  imagination  found  free  expression.  In  Dom  Duardos 
(1525),  written  entirely  in  Castilian,  he  dramatized  a  portion 
of  the  second  book  of  the  Palmerin  de  Oliva  series.  Don 
Duardos,  Prince  of  England,  becomes  enamoured  of  Flerida, 
daughter  of  Emperor  Palmerin  of  Constantinople  while  en- 
gaged in  combat  at  her  father's  court,  but  does  not  disclose 


I08          SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

his  identity.  After  many  adventures,  he  returns  to  the  Em- 
peror's court  and  secures  employment  as  gardener,  so  that  he 
may  have  an  opportunity  to  see  and  speak  with  the  Princess. 
His  ardent  love,  couched  in  poetic  language,  awakens  in  the 
heart  of  Flerida  an  uncommon  interest,  which  is  transformed 
into  real  affection  after  she  drinks  from  an  enchanted  cup 
presented  to  her  by  Don  Duardos.  In  vain  she  calls  upon  him 
to  declare  his  identity,  fearful  of  bestowing  her  affection  upon 
an  unworthy  object,  but  he  romantically  prefers  to  obtain  her 
favour  with  the  sacrifice  that  his  humble  station  seems  to  in- 
volve. Finally  they  embark  together  into  the  great  unknown. 
A  sort  of  comic  interlude  which  treats  of  the  appearance  of 
Camilote  and  Maimonda  at  the  court  of  the  Emperor  shows 
the  author's  critical  spirit  with  a  tendency  to  burlesque, 
in  handling  his  material ;  but  aside  from  this  incident,  he  deals 
with  it  sympathetically  and  surrounds  his  characters  with  a 
poetic  atmosphere. 

Vicente's  Amadis  de  Gaula,  performed  in  1533,  has  far  less 
interest.  This  deals  with  the  well-known  incident  of  the  re- 
tirement of  Amadis  from  the  world  as  a  consequence  of  a 
letter  from  Oriana,  charging  him  with  insincerity.  The  grief 
of  Amadis  is  too  extravagant  to  awaken  our  pity,  and  we  are 
not  quite  sure  whether  this  picture  of  the  hermit-knight  was 
drawn  in  a  serious  or  mocking  mood.  At  all  events,  hair- 
splitting casuistry  replaces  the  tender  passion  of  Don  Duardos, 
and  the  plot  is  loosely  constructed. 

Vicente's  last  play,  the  Floresta  de  enganos,  performed  in 
1536  and  written  in  Portuguese  and  'Castilian,  is  a  bizarre 
composition.  Preceded  by  an  ingenious  prologue  in  dialogue 
form,  it  presents  a  series  of  deceptions  and  tricks  with  little 
relationship  to  one  another.  Two  of  these,  the  trick  played 
by  a  youth  upon  a  merchant  who  tried  to  deceive  him,  and  the 
discomfiture  of  an  unscrupulous  officer  of  justice,  are  con- 
ceived in  the  same  spirit  as  some  of  Lope  de  Rueda's  pasos. 

Among  the  farces  of  Gil  Vicente,  we  are  here  concerned 
only  with  the  Farfa  das  ciganas  (probably  1525),  written  en- 


ROMANTIC  COMEDY  IC>9 

tirely  in  Spanish,  and  the  Farfa  dos  fisicos,  which  contains  a 
considerable  amount  of  Castilian.  The  former  is  a  brief  com- 
position without  dramatic  interest,  presenting  four  gipsy  girls 
who  announce  to  imaginary  clients  their  skill  in  fortune- 
telling,  and  four  gipsy  men  who  in  like  manner,  offer  their 
services  as  horse-traders.  The  latter  is  an  exceedingly  witty 
satire  of  the  medical  profession  and  of  the  lax  morals  of  cer- 
tain members  of  the  clergy.  Four  doctors,  prominent  figures 
at  Court,  are  called  in  to  attend  a  priest  and  make  as  many 
diagnoses  concerning  the  cause  of  his  illness,  without  realiz- 
ing that  he  has  been  brought  to  death's  door  by  the  curt  re- 
fusal of  a  woman  to  accept  his  love.  He  confesses  the  truth 
to  a  friar,  who  reproaches  him  only  for  lack  of  patience,  and 
comforts  him  by  declaring  that  he  is  merely  obeying  the  Divine 
command  to  Adam  that  for  woman,  man  shall  forsake  all. 
This  little  play  is  a  masterpiece  of  cynical  humour. 

The  Farsa  Salamantina  of  Bartolome  Palau  presents  once 
more  the  familiar  incidents  of  the  Comedia  Himenea  and  its 
imitations  with  one  important  difference,  namely,  that  the  sen- 
timental lover  here  appears  as  a  picaro,  and  the  romantic  pas- 
sion of  Himeneo  degenerates  into  a  sordid  abduction  with 
robbery  as  the  motive.  There  is  no  contrast  here  between 
sentimentality  and  common  sense,  since  both  master  and  ser- 
vant are  anti-heroes  and  have  the  same  ethical  code,  or  the 
lack  of  one.  Most  of  the  incidents  might  readily  form  a 
chapter  of  a  picaresque  novel. 

The  form  of  the  play — five  jornadas  and  coplas  de  pie  que~ 
brado — recalls  Torres  Naharro  and  his  imitators,  and  in  a  few 
scenes  the  author  shows  unmistakable  acquaintance  with  Jaime 
de  Giiete's  Comedia  Tesorina.  The  background  of  student 
life  at  Salamanca,  with  its  discomforts,  is  vividly  portrayed, 
and  there  is  interesting  criticism  of  the  contemporaneous! 
standards  of  justice  in  the  lackey's  description  of  the  harsh 
treatment  accorded  to  servants.  The  only  old  edition  known 
is  of  the  year  1552,  but  since  the  author  refers  to  himself  in 
the  rubric  as  "  a  student  of  Burbaguena  ",  it  is  likely  that  it 


IIO          SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

was  written  at  approximately  the  same  time  as  Palau's  first 
play,  the  Farsa  llamada  custodia  del  hombre,  which  was  com- 
posed between  1540  and  1547.  Five  episodes  in  the  play, 
which  have  little  connection  with  the  action,  recall  Lope  de 
Rueda's  use  of  the  paso,  and  seem  to  indicate  an  acquaintance 
with  the  plays  of  his  illustrious  contemporary.  It  has  been 
conjectured  that  Lope  de  Rueda  referred  to  Palau  in  describ- 
ing the  Licentiate  Jaquima  in  his  paso  entitled  El  conmdado. 
The  Comedia  Prodiga  of  Luis  de  Miranda,  published  at 
Seville  in  1554,  and  possibly  written  shortly  after  I532,1  pre- 
sents in  seven  acts  the  Parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son,  a  favorite 
subject  for  School  Dramas  throughout  Western  Europe  dur- 
ing the  Renaissance.  The  author  expressly  states  his  desire 
to  show  young  men  the  wages  of  sin  and  dissolute  conduct, 
and  while  we  should  not  question  his  sincerity,  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted that  he  describes  with  relish  Prodigo's  downfall.  A 
victim  of  thievish  parasites  and  unscrupulous  harlots,  the 
youth  is  speedily  reduced  to  poverty  and  repentance,  and  re- 
turns to  his  father,  richer  only  in  experience.  The  author  is 
skillful  in  presenting  these  picaresque  characters,  who  were 
undoubtedly  suggested  by  the  Celestina,  and  the  play  has  con- 
siderable human  interest. 

Teatro  espanol  del  siglo  XVI,  p.  122. 


CHAPTER  VI 
LOPE  DE  RUEDA,  ITALIANATE  COMEDY  AND  THE  FARCE 

IN  the  prologue  to  his  volume  entitled  Ocho  comedian 
(1615),  Cervantes  writes  enthusiastically  of  his  youthful  re- 
collections of  the  plays  of  Lope  de  Rueda.  "  He  was  a  native 
of  Seville ",  says  Cervantes,  "  and  a  gold-beater  by  trade. 
He  was  a  marvel  in  pastoral  poetry,  and  in  that  style,  neither  in 
his  own  day  nor  since,  has  he  been  surpassed  by  any  one.  I 
was  only  a  boy  then,  and  could  not  form  a  reliable  judgment 
of  the  merit  of  his  verses,  but  now,  at  my  mature  age,  I  have 
read  some  of  the  lines  that  remained  in  my  memory  and  I 
find  that  what  I  have  said  is  true.  If  it  were  not  out  of  place 
to  do  so  in  this  prologue,  I  should  quote  here  some  lines  that 
confirm  my  statement ".  After  giving  us  valuable  informa- 
tion concerning  the  staging  of  Rueda's  plays,  Cervantes  con- 
tinues :  "  Lope  de  Rueda  died  at  Cordoba,  and  because  he! 
was  an  excellent  and  famous  man,  they  buried  him  in  the 
cathedral  of  that  city  between  the  two  choirs  ". 

Recent  investigations  have  contributed  a  few  additional  facts 
to  his  biography.  We  do  not  know  when  Rueda  adopted  the 
profession  of  actor,  but  by  1551  he  had  become  a  professional 
actor-manager,  the  first  of  which  we  have  any  record  in  Spain. 
In  1554  his  company  performed  a  religious  play  at  Ben- 
avente  (a  town  between  Zamora  and  Astorga)  as  a  part  of 
the  festivities  organized  by  Don  Antonio  Alonso  Pimentel, 
Count  of  Benavente,  in  honor  of  Philip  II  who  was  en  route  to 
England.  From  1554  to  1557,  Rueda  was  living  at  Valladolid 
with  his  wife  Mariana,  a  strolling  singer  and  dancer,  as  ap- 
pears from  the  court  records  of  a  suit  brought  by  him  against 
the  heir  of  Don  Gaston  de  la  Cerda,  Duke  of  Medinaceli,  for 

in 


H2          SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

services  rendered  by  Mariana  from  1546  to  1552.  In  1558 
we  find  him  performing  una  gusto sa  co media  at  the  dedication 
of  the  new  Cathedral  of  Segovia,  and  the  following  year  his 
company  presented  two  autos  entitled  El  hijo  prodigo  and 
Navalcarmelo  at  the  Corpus  festival  at  Seville. 

He  is  said  to  have  performed  'Corpus  plays  at  Toledo  in 
1561,  and  we  find  him  in  the  same  year  living  at  Madrid  where 
he  received  payments  from  the  Royal  Treasury  for  two  plays 
presented  at  the  instance  of  the  Queen.  It  was  probably  in 
this  year  that  'Cervantes  witnessed  one  or  more  of  Rueda' s 
performances.  The  sojourn  in  Madrid  was  not  financially  pro- 
fitable and  in  the  latter  part  of  1561,  the  actor-manager  left 
for  Valencia,  the  native  city  of  Rafaela  Angela  Trilles,  his 
second  wife.  We  do  not  know  how  long  he  remained  in 
Valencia,  where  some  of  his  plays  were  undoubtedly  per- 
formed, nor  do  we  know  in  what  year  he  went  to  Cordoba, 
where  he  died,  probably,  in  1565. 

The  rise  of  travelling  theatrical  companies  in  Spain  about 
the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century  is  a  fact  of  great  import- 
ance in  the  development  of  the  drama.  Previous  to  that  time 
there  had  been  actors  in  Spain,  but  they  were  attached  for  the 
most  part  to  the  household  of  a  nobleman.  This  meant  that 
their  performances  were  limited  to  private  representations, 
that  plays  became  generally  known  only  in  printed  form,  and 
that  the  type  of  plays  was  more  or  less  dictated  by  the  taste  of 
wealthy  patrons.  The  earliest  reference  to  professional  actors 
in  Spain  is  found  in  an  edict  promulgated  by  Charles  V  in 
1534  against  extravagance  in  dress,  in  which  it  is  stated  that 
the  same  restrictions  apply  to  "  los  comediantes,  hombres  y 
mugeres,  musicos  y  las  demas  personas  que  asisten  en  las 
comedias "  as  to  other  persons.  This  ill  accords  with  the 
statement  of  Cervantes  concerning  the  meager  stage  proper- 
ties employed  by  Rueda,  and  we  may  assume  that  the  decree 
had  in  view  court  entertainments  rather  than  the  popular  per- 
formances of  the  day.  Theatres  were,  of  course,  unknown, 
and  Rueda,  apparently,  was  willing  to  play  whenever  an 
audience  could  be  collected  in  some  square  or  yard. 


LOPE  DE  RUED  A 

It  is  unfortunate  that  we  do  not  possess  the  original  text 
of  Lope  de  Rueda's  plays.  These  were  published  two  years 
after  the  author's  death,  in  1567,  by  the  Valencian  .playwright 
and  bookseller,  Juan  de  Timoneda,  who  states  in  the  preface 
of  the  Comedia  Eufemia  and  Comedia  Armelina  that  he  had 
changed  certain  portions  of  the  original  manuscript  before 
soliciting  permission  to  print,  omitting  "  algunas  cosas  na 
licitas  y  mal  sonantes,  que  algunos  en  vida  de  Lope  habran 
oido  ",  and  in  the  prologue  to  the  Comedia  de  los  enganados 
and  Comedia  Medora,  he  complains  of  the  labor  involved  in 
making  many  corrections  in  the  original  text.  We  have  no 
means  of  determining  whether  the  editor  limited  himself  to 
changes  of  minor  importance,  or  whether  he  actually  at- 
tempted to  rewrite  the  plays. 

We  have  not  sufficient  evidence  to  assign  dates  to  the  com- 
position of  these  four  comedies,  nor  even  to  determine  their 
chronological  order.  Because  of  its  faulty  construction  and 
lack  of  originality,  Stiefel  gave  first  place  in  point  of  time  to 
the  Comedia  Medora.  Here  Rueda  made  free  use  of  La 
Zingana  (or  Cingana),  by  the  poet-painter  Gigio  Arthemio 
Giancarli,  which  was  first  published  at  Mantua  in  1545  or 
1546.  This  play  which  is  one  of  the  most  curious  dialectal 
comedies  of  the  Cinquecento,  combines  elements  derived  from 
classical  sources  and  from  the  commedia  rusticate.  The  plot 
turns,  as  in  the  Menaechmi  and  La  Calaitdria,  on  the  resem- 
blance of  twins,  a  boy  and  a  girl,  and  the  identification  finally 
effected  by  a  gipsy  woman  who  had  stolen  the  boy  from  his 
cradle.  The  play  seems  to  have  enjoyed  unusual  popularity  in 
Italy  and  its  influence  upon  a  number  of  later  compositions 
has  been  noted.  Rueda  retained  the  chief  incidents  of  his 
Italian  original,  but  omitted  many  scenes  of  secondary  import- 
ance, thereby  greatly  reducing  its  length,  and  added  four  new 
characters,  the  rufianes  Penalva  and  Logrono,  the  simple 
Ortega  and  the  page  Perico.  He  also  gave  increased  import- 
ance to  the  braggart  Gargullo,  a  role  in  which  he  himself  ex- 
celled, and  he  invented  a  few  comic  scenes  which  may  be 
classified  as  pasos. 


II4          SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

Two  cases  of  mistaken  identity,  which  recall  the  plots  of 
two  Italian  plays,  //  Servigiale  of  Giovan  Maria  Cecchi  and 
Altilia  of  Anton  Francesco  Raineri,  form  the  basis  of  the 
Comedia  Armelina.  The  anagnorisis  is  brought  about  by 
Neptune  who,  after  saving  Armelina  from  a  misalliance  with 
a  shoemaker,  restores  to  one  father  a  long-lost  daughter  and 
to  another  a  long-lost  son.  Whatever  may  be  the  debt  of 
Lope  de  Rueda  to  the  above-mentioned  Italian  dramatists,  or 
to  a  common  original,  the  play  is  redeemed  from  utter  ab- 
surdity by  a  few  comic  scenes  that  are  undoubtedly  his  own, 
invention.  Lope  de  Vega  had  this  play  in  mind  when  he 
wrote  in  El  arte  nuevo  de  hacer  comedias  of  the  prose  comedies 
of  Rueda  which  introduced  tradespeople  and  the  love-affair  of 
a  smith's  daughter. 

In  writing  Los  enganados,  Rueda  made  a  free  version  of 
the  anonymous  Gl' Ingannati,  one  of  the  best  Italian  comedies 
of  the  Cinquecento,  and  first  performed  by  the  Intronati  of 
Siena  in  1531.  Gl' Ingannati  was  first  published  at  Venice 
in  1537,  and  its  success  is  attested  by  no  less  than  twenty 
editions;  by  its  translation  into  Latin  by  Juan  Perez  with  the 
title  Decepti  (1574)  and  an  anonymous  Latin  translation  made 
in  England  about  twenty  years  later  with  the  title  Laelia,  and 
by  the  fact  that  it  was  the  direct  or  indirect  source  of  Twelfth 
Night,  Charles  Estienne's  Les  Abuses  and  La  espanola  de 
Florencia  of  Calderon  de  la  Barca  or  Lope  de  Vega. 

For  the  five  acts  of  Gl'Ingannati,  he  substituted  a  division 
into  ten  scenes.  Finding  his  Italian  original  too  long  for  his 
purpose,  he  suppressed  many  relatively  unimportant  incidents 
and  concentrated  the  interest  upon  the  love  of  the  girl-page 
Lelia  for  Lauro,  and  the  complications  arising  from  the  re- 
semblance between  Lelia  and  her  brother,  Fabricio.  Certain 
scenes  were  omitted  in  the  interest  of  decency,  while  the 
comic  elements  with  the  bobos  Pa j ares  and  Salamanca,  and  the 
negress  Guiomar  as  the  chief  characters,  are  almost  entirely 
original.  In  his  adaptation,  Rueda  showed  himself  a  good 
judge  of  dramatic  values,  but  the  play,  while  interesting,  does 


LOPE  DE  RUED A  115 

not  rise  above  the  level  of  an  ingenious  comedy  of  intrigue. 
It  is  obviously  unfair  to  compare  Rueda  with  Shakespeare,  but 
it  is  nevertheless  true  that  Los  enganados  would  give  us  more 
enjoyment  if  Twelfth  Night  had  not  been  written.  The  in- 
cidents are  sufficiently  similar  for  us  to  expect  Viola  and  the 
Duke  when  it  is  only  Lelia  and  Lauro,  and  Rueda's  clowns 
are  poor  substitutes  for  Sir  Toby  and  Sir  Andrew.  Los  en- 
ganados presents  a  few  romantic  situations,  but  is  devoid  of 
the  saving  grace  of  poetic  fancy. 

Greater  originality  is  shown  in  the  composition  of  Eufemia 
which,  like  Cymbeline,  is  ultimately  derived  from  the  ninth 
story  of  the  second  Day  of  the  Decameron.  In  the  latter  ver- 
sion, the  testing  of  a  woman's  virtue  and  the  false  charge 
brought  against  her  is  the  result  of  a  wager,  while  in  Rueda's 
play,  jealousy  is  the  motive  for  the  attempt  to  discredit  the 
heroine.  In  Eufemia,  the  protagonists  are  a  brother  and 
sister,  and  in  the  Decameron,  a  husband  and  wife.  The 
wanderings  of  the  outraged  wife,  which  occupy  so  important 
a  place  in  Boccaccio's  version,  do  not  appear  in  Rueda's  play, 
and  the  denouement  is  entirely  different.  There  are  few 
scenes  in  the  early  Spanish  drama  more  compelling  that  that  irt 
which  Eufemia  confronts  her  traducer  and  ingeniously  ex- 
torts from  him  an  acknowledgment  of  her  innocence.  The 
play  has  in  common  with  the  story  of  the  Decameron  little 
besides  the  manner  in  which  the  false  evidence  is  obtained. 
Until  the  contrary  is  proved,  the  other  incidents  must  be  re- 
garded as  Rueda's  own  invention.  The  fifteenth  patrana  of 
Timoneda's  Patranuelo,  published  a  year  after  Rueda's  death, 
contains  another  version  of  the  story,  which  shows  more 
analogy  with  the  Decameron  than  with  Eufemia. 

Two  pastoral  colloquies  of  Lope  de  Rueda,  published  to- 
gether with  the  four  comedies  by  Timoneda  in  1567,  have 
only  a  superficial  relationship  with  the  conventions  of  the 
earlier  pastoral  drama.  The  first  scenes  of  the  Coloquio  de 
Camila  attempt  to  reproduce  the  artificial  pastoral  setting  of 
Sannazzaro's  Arcadia  or  the  Diana  of  Montemayor,  but  the 


XI6    SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

plot  repeats,  with  few  changes,  the  incidents  of  the  Comedia 
Armelina.  In  the  Coloquio  de  Tymbria,  disenchantments 
alter  so  frequently  the  identity  and  sex  of  the  principal  char- 
acters that  the  patient  reader  reaches  the  denouement  with 
patience  exhausted.  Rueda  is  absurd  when  he  essays  elevated 
language  or  fanciful  material,  and  the  play  is  only  redeemed 
by  a  few  excellent  farcical  scenes. 

In  order  to  properly  understand  his  dramatic  work,  we 
must  realize  that  he  looked  upon  plays  solely  from  the  point 
of  view  of  an  actor  and  manager,  and  that  he  regarded  of 
prime  importance  the  entertainment  of  an  audience  that  might 
assemble  on  the  village  square  or  in  some  inn-yard.  Under 
these  circumstances,  the  conventional  pastorals  and  the  refined 
subtilties  of  Torres  Naharro,  composed  for  representation 
before  gentlefolk,  were  unsuited  to  his  purpose.  He  knew 
that  comedy  of  intrigue  with  romantic  incidents,  interspersed 
with  farcical  scenes  and  horse-play,  would  please,  and  he 
found  some  of  these  elements  in  the  Italian  comedy  of  his 
time.  We  know  that  a  certain  Muzio,  with  a  company  of 
Italian  players,  took  part  in  the  Corpus  festival  at  Seville 
in  1538,  and  that  one  of  Ariosto's  comedies  was  performed 
at  Valladolid  in  1548,  presumably  by  an  Italian  company,  on 
the  occasion  of  the  marriage  of  the  Infanta  Maria,  daughter 
of  Charles  V.,  to  Maximilian,  Prince  of  Hungary.  Also, 
some  time  between  1556  and  1559,  or  before,  Antonio  Vig- 
nali  of  Siena,  a  member  of  the  Accademia  degli  Intronati, 
presented  plays  at  the  court  of  Philip  II.  In  view  of  these 
facts,  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  Rueda  became  acquainted 
with  Italian  plays  through  the  repertory  of  some  itinerant 
Italian  troupe.  At  all  events,  he  wrote  as  a  professional  play- 
wright, with  more  consideration  for  the  requirements  of  his 
audience  than  care  in  interpreting  faithfully  his  original.  He 
realized,  too,  that  humor  is  essentially  local  in  its  appeal,  and 
he  usually  replaced  comic  scenes  in  the  Italian  plays  that  he 
recast  by  others  of  his  own  invention.  It  is  particularly  in 
these  scenes  that  he  shows  a  mastery  of  dialogue  and  a  know- 


LOPE  DE  RUED  A 

ledge  of  the  resources  of  popular  speech  unsurpassed  in  Spain 
in  the  sixteenth  century. 

As  Torres  Naharro  occupies  first  place  in  the  drama  in 
the  first  half  of  the  century,  Lope  de  Rueda  is  the  dominant 
figure  among  the  playwrights  about  the  middle  of  the  century. 
His  use  of  prose  constituted  an  innovation  that  was  followed 
by  Timoneda,  Sepulveda  and  Alonso  de  la  Vega  and  which, 
fortunately,  was  abandoned  by  later  dramatists.  For  the  di- 
vision into  five  acts  used  by  some  of  his  predecessors,  he  sub- 
stituted a  varying  number  of  scenes.  His  conception  of 
humor  was  far  more  primitive  than  that  of  Torres  Naharro. 
His  aim  was  to  provoke  loud  laughter,  and  to  gain  this  end, 
he  employed  the  most  obvious  means,  the  stupidity  and  im- 
pertinence of  a  bobo,  the  cowardice  of  a  braggart  and  the  un- 
intelligible jargon  of  a  negress,  a  Moor  or  a  Biscayan.  We 
do  not  know  to  what  an  extent  he  may  be  regarded  as  the 
creator  of  these  comic  types,  but  there  is  no  doubt  that  he 
made  them  popular.  He  is  important  in  having  enlarged  the 
scope  of  the  comedy  of  intrigue,  but  his  chief  contribution  to 
the  development  of  the  Spanish  drama  lies  in  the  creation 
or  perfecting  of  a  new  genre,  the  pcaso,  which  will  be  dis- 
cussed later. 

The  plays  of  Lope  de  Rueda  were  written  at  a  time  when 
the  influence  of  Italian  literature  was  predominant  in  almost 
every  field  of  literary  activity.  The  lyric  poets,  such  as 
Cetina,  Acuna  and  Hurtado  de  Mendoza,  were  following  the 
example  of  Boscan  and  Garcilaso  de  la  Vega,  and  imitat- 
ing the  Italian  poets  in  form  and  content.  Even  the  old  bal- 
lads could  not  compete  successfully  with  the  translations  and 
imitations  of  Boiardo  and  Ariosto,  and  Italian  novels  were  ap- 
pearing in  Spanish  dress.  The  temporary  vogue  of  Italian 
comedy  in  Spain  was  as  inevitable  as  in  France  and  England, 
where  Pierre  de  Larivey  and  George  Gascoigne  likewise  laid 
tribute  upon  Italian  models. 

One  of  the  best  comedies  of  intrigue  composed  in  Spain  be- 
fore the  time  of  Lope  de  Vega  is  a  comedia  without  title  by  a 


SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

certain  Sepulveda,  preserved  in  a  manuscript  dated  at  Seville, 
1547.  It  consists  of  four  acts  in  prose  and  is  introduced  by  a 
prologue  in  which  two  friends  are  represented  as  discussing 
the  play  and  its  author  before  witnessing  the  performance. 
As  in  Gl'Ingannati,  the  plot  turns  on  the  disguise  of  page 
adopted  by  a  young  girl  in  order  to  be  near  her  indifferent 
lover,  and  the  discovery  by  her  father  of  another  young 
woman  who  had  been  lost  in  childhood.  Besides,  there  is 
a  resourceful  lackey  who  is  willing  to  appear  to  encourage 
the  ridiculous  pretensions  of  an  old  man  in  return  for  gen- 
erous payment,  and  who  succeeds  in  compassing  the  complete 
discomfiture  of  a  necromancer,  his  accomplice.  The  pro- 
logue contains  a  defense  of  the  art  of  playwriting,  and  an  in- 
teresting appreciation  of  the  excellence  of  Italian  comedy. 
The  author  speaks  with  some  experience,  for  his  own  play  is  a 
free  translation  of  //  Viluppo  by  the  well-known  Italian  dra- 
matist and  novelist  Girolamo  Parabosco,  first  published  at 
Venice  in  1547. 

The  reduction  of  the  five  acts  of  //  Viluppo  to  four,  in- 
volved changes  in  arrangement,  particularly  in  the  third  act, 
but  in  general  the  order  of  scenes  is  retained,  and  most  of 
them  are  close  adaptations  of  the  Italian  text.  Unlike  Lope  de 
Rueda  in  his  versions  of  Italian  comedies,  Sepulveda  intro- 
duced no  new  comic  scenes.  It  is  true,  however,  that  he  dealt 
with  his  original  in  a  critical  spirit,  and  displayed  a  real 
dramatic  sense.  He  showed  good  judgment  in  omitting  cer- 
tain unnecessary  monologues  and  in  suppressing  the  scenes 
in  which  the  bawd  Colombina  appears.  He  also  rearranged 
the  scenes  of  the  last  act,  making  a  more  effective  denouement 
than  in  Parabosco's  play.  The  prologue  contains  some 
original  material,  including  the  earliest  Spanish  reference  with 
which  I  am  acquainted  to  the  dramatic  unity  of  time,  and  one 
of  the  first  recorded  uses  of  the  term  cntremes  as  synonymous 
with  paso. 

It  is  unfortunate  that  we  have  not  sufficient  evidence  to 
identify  the  author.  His  acquaintance  with  Latin  writers  and 


LOPE  DE  RUED  A 

classical  mythology  is  proven  by  many  references,  and  in  one 
amusing  scene  he  criticises  the  superficiality  of  Greek  studies 
at  that  time,  which  implies  some  knowledge  of  that  language. 
His  own  prose  is  characterized  by  dignity  and  grace,  and  gives 
evidence  of  a  thorough  knowledge  and  mastery  of  colloquial 
speech  at  its  best.  The  dialogue  is  natural  and  in  good  taste, 
and  his  comic  scenes  never  degenerate  into  the  nonsense  that 
mars  so  many  plays  of  his  time.  With  respect  to  style  and 
construction,  this  comedia  is  vastly  superior  to  any  of  the 
plays  of  Timoneda  or  Alonso  de  la  Vega,  and  is  not  sur- 
passed, in  my  opinion,  by  any  play  of  Lope  de  Rueda. 

Juan  de  Timoneda  has  many  points  of  contact  with  Spanish 
literary  history  about  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century. 
Combining  a  keen  business  instinct  with  love  for  letters,  he 
carried  on  successfully  a  bookselling  and  publishing  business 
at  Valencia  and  printed  a  number  of  books  of  real  literary 
value.  As  we  know,  he  was  the  editor  and  publisher  of  the 
four  comedies  of  Lope  de  Rueda,  which  appeared  in  1567, 
and  to  him  is  also  due  the  publication  of  the  three  plays  of 
Alonso  de  la  Vega.  Furthermore,  he  wrote  plays  himself ;  he 
collected  and  issued  short  stories  gathered  from  many  sources 
and  was  a  pioneer  in  the  collecting  of  popular  poetry  and  old 
Tballads. 

In  1559  he  printed  a  volume  that  included  the  Comedia  de 
Amphitrion,  Comedia  de  los  Menemnos  and  Comedia  de  Cor- 
nelia (or  Carmelia),  and  states  in  a  preface  that  he  has  at- 
tempted to  combine  the  use  of  prose  after  the  fashion  of  the 
Celestina  with  the  actable  quality  of  the  plays  of  Torres 
Naharro. 

The  Comedia  de  Amphitrion  contains  a  prologue  which  pre- 
sents in  dramatic  form  a  caso  de  amor.  An  old  shepherd, 
named  Bromio,  urges  his  daughter,  Pascuala,  to  declare  her 
preference  for  one  of  her  suitors,  Morato  or  Roseno,  both  of 
whom  have  served  her  faithfully.  The  maiden  replies  that  she 
will  indicate  her  choice  by  a  sign,  and  gives  to  one  her  garland 
and  accepts  a  garland  from  the  other.  After  her  departure,  the 


120          SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

lovers  dispute  as  to  the  meaning  of  her  enigmatical  reply  and 
the  audience  is  asked  to  decide  which  suitor  had  been  favored. 
This  casuistical  discussion  is  derived  from  the  first  question 
in  the  fourth  part  of  Boccaccio's  Filocolo.  It  will  be  recalled 
that  while  searching  for  Biancofiore,  Filocolo  is  obliged  by 
reason  of  a  storm  to  stop  at  Naples,  where  he  is  cordially  re- 
ceived by  Fiammetta  and  her  merry  companions.  One  after- 
noon, Fiammetta  suggests  that  they  amuse  themselves  by  pro- 
posing question}  d'amore  to  a  king  who  shall  be  elected  by 
her  comrades.  She  herself,  however,  is  chosen  as  queen,  and 
thirteen  subtle  questions  are  offered  of  the  same  type  that  the 
troubadours  discussed  in  their  tenzoni.  The  first  is  practically 
identical  with  the  subject  treated  in  Timoneda's  prologue. 
The  dramatic  presentation  of  these  questions  d'amore  was  not 
uncommon  in  aristocratic  circles  in  Italy,  and  we  know  that 
this  same  problem  was  the  basis  of  a  brief  play  presented  be- 
fore Isabella  del  Balzo,  Queen  of  Naples,  some  time  prior  to» 
I497.1  Timoneda  may  have  known  the  Filocolo  in  its  original 
text,  or  he  may  have  been  acquainted  with  the  '  Thirteen, 
Questions  '  as  translated  into  Spanish  by  Diego  Lopez  de  Ayala 
and  Diego  de  Salazar,  and  published  at  Seville  in  1546  with 
the  title  Laberinto  de  Amor  and  again  at  Toledo  in  the  same 
year  with  the  title  Trece  questiones  muy  graciosas  sacadas  del 
Philoculo  del  famoso  Juan  Bocacio. 

The  title  of  the  Comedia  de  Amphitrion  bears  the  rubric, 
"  traduzida  por  Juan  Timoneda,  y  puesta  en  estilo  que  se 
puede  representar ".  The  second  statement  is  correct,  but 
the  first  must  be  interpreted  in  broad  terms.  Timoneda  did 
not  translate  the  Amphitruo,  but  made  an  acting  version  of 
the  translation  by  Francisco  Lopez  de  Villalobos  (1515).) 
This  is  proved  by  many  cases  of  verbal  similarity,  and  by  the 
use  as  his  last  scene  of  a  spurious  addition  which  is  also  found 
in  the  version  of  Villalobos. 

Timoneda   was   not   a  humanist,   and   was   not  moved  by 

Benedetto  Croce,  I  Teatri  di  Napoli  dal  Rinascimento  alia  fine  del 
secolo  decimottavo,  Bari,  1916,  p.  13. 


LOPE  DE  RUEDA  I2i 

scholarly  zeal  to  introduce  Plautus  to  a  Valencian  audience. 
This  witty  comedy  of  adultery,  with  its  equivocal  situations, 
provided  him  with  an  interesting  plot  which  he  adapted  to) 
suit  his  needs.  The  servant  Sosia,  here  baptized  Sosia  Tardio, 
has  many  characteristics  of  the  conventional  bobo  and  is  more 
completely  Spanish  than  the  other  personages.  He  knows 
the  proverbs  of  Spain,  revels  like  a  true  Valencian  in  olives 
and  rice  and  makes  many  allusions  to  local  customs.  By  his 
fidelity  to  his  master,  and  his  materialistic  philosophy,  he  is 
a  worthy  forerunner  of  the  immortal  Sancho  Panza. 

Timoneda's  Amphitrion,  together  with  the  Comedia  de  los 
Menemnos,  were  the  first  appearances  of  Plautus  on  the 
Spanish  stage,  as  the  translation  of  Lopez  de  Villalobos  was 
the  first  appearance  of  Plautus  in  Castilian.  A  second  trans- 
lation of  the  Amphitruo  was  made  by  Maestro  Hernan  Perez 
de  Oliva,  published  about  1525  with  the  title  Muestra  de  la 
lengua  castellana  en  el  nascimiento  de  Hercules,  o  Comedia  de 
Amphitrion,  and  another  version  by  an  anonymous  Toledan 
appeared  in  1554.  Anonymous  translations  of  the  Miles 
Gloriosus  and  Menaechmi,  printed  at  Antwerp  in  1555,  and 
Pedro  Simon  Abril's  version  of  the  six  comedies  of  Terence, 
published  in  1577,  complete  the  list  of  printed  Spanish  trans- 
lations of  Latin  comedy  in  the  sixteenth  century. 

The  Comedia  de  los  Menemnos  is  preceded  by  a  prologue  in 
which  three  shepherds,  enamoured  of  the  shepherdess  Temisa, 
present  themselves  before  Cupid  and  ask  him  to  decide  which 
of  them  the  maiden  should  prefer.  Claudino  has  boasted  of 
his  physical  strength,  Climaco  has  assured  her  of  his  sincerity 
and  generosity,  while  Ginebro  has  urged  his  suit  on  the  plea 
of  his  prudence  and  wisdom.  Cupid  approves  her  choice  of 
Ginebro,  declaring  that  neither  the  strength  of  Hercules  nor 
the  generosity  of  Alexander  will  satisfy  a  discreet  woman, 
who  demands  the  fruits  of  real  knowledge.  The  rejected 
suitors  are  satisfied  with  the  decision,  and  recite  the  argu- 
ment of  the  play.  The  source  of  this  prologue  is  the  third 
questione  d'amore  of  the  Filocolo. 


122          SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

In  the  Comedia  de  los  Menemnos,  he  shows  more  indepen- 
dence in  dealing  with  his  original.  While  the  principal  feat- 
ures of  the  plot  of  the  Menccchmi  have  been  retained,  a  num- 
ber of  unimportant  scenes  have  been  omitted  or  abridged, 
two  new  scenes  have  been  added,  and  the  play  has  been  given 
a  Spanish  atmosphere.  The  doctor  of  the  Men&chmi  is 
transformed  through  the  influence  of  Ariosto  into  the  necro- 
mancer Averroyz,  and  the  scenes  in  which  he  takes  part  are 
among  the  best  in  the  play.  Averroyz  is  accompanied  by  a 
boy  named  Lazarillo  whose  relationship  to  the  famous  rogue 
is  vouched  for  by  the  doctor  himself.  The  play  shows  con- 
siderable dramatic  skill,  the  various  situations  are  logically 
constructed  and  the  action  moves  along  rapidly.  It  is  hardly 
reasonable  to  suppose  that  Timoneda  knew  sufficient  Latin 
to  actually  translate  the  Men&chmi.  In  composing  Los  Mene- 
mnos, it  is  likely  that  he  made  use  of  the  Castilian  translation 
printed  at  Antwerp  in  1555,  or  one  of  the  Italian  versions. 

The  Comedia  de  Carmelia  (or  Cornelia)  is  introduced  by 
a  caso  de  amor  that  is  analogous  to  the  prologues  of  the  other 
two  plays.  The  play  itself  is  an  ingenious  comedy  of  intri- 
gue. Lupercio  is  negotiating  for  the  marriage  of  his  son 
Fulvio  to  Carmelia,  reputed  to  be  the  daughter  of  Polianteo, 
but  the  young  people  have  good  reasons  to  oppose  the  match. 
Carmelia  had  secretly  married  Taucio,  son  of  Polianteo,  three 
years  before,  and  in  spite  of  his  long  absence,  she  still  hopes 
for  his  return,  while  Fulvio  has  a  mistress  in  Mencia  de 
Logrono,  wife  of  the  simple  Cornalla.  The  unexpected  ap- 
pearance of  the  necromancer  Pasquin  brings  about  a  solution 
of  these  difficulties.  Lupercio  engages  him  to  cure  Fulvio  of 
a  malady  that  threatens  to  prevent  his  marriage ;  Fulvio  bribes 
him  to  keep  the  secret  that  his  illness  is  feigned,  and  Taucio 
enlists  his  aid  to  recover  his  missing  Carmelia.  The  charla- 
tan succeeds,  by  rare  good  fortune,  in  satisfying  everyone. 
He  reunites  Taucio  and  Carmelia,  and  proves  that  the  latter 
is  the  long-lost  daughter  of  Leonardo.  Besides  the  figures  of 
the  necromancer  and  his  attendant,  the  Comedia  de  Carmelia 


LOPE  DE  RUED  A 


I23 


has  other  points  of  resemblance  with  Ariosto's  //  Negromante. 
In  both  plays,  the  expedient  of  a  feigned  malady  is  adopted  to 
prevent  a  marriage,  and  in  each  case  the  father  of  the  young 
man  applies  to  a  necromancer  to  cure  his  sickness.  From  a; 
reference  to  the  capture  of  Bugia  by  the  Moors,  its  date  of 
composition  must  be  placed  after  1555. 

In  his  book  on  the  drama  at  Valencia,  M.  Henri  Merimee 
questions  the  good  faith  of  Tinoneda  with  respect  to  some  of 
the  plays  ascribed  to  him.  He  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that 
while  the  title  of  this  play  is  Comedia  de  Cornelia,  the  heroine's 
name,  except  in  three  cases,  appears  as  Carmelia.  Furthermore, 
while  Valencia  is  supposed  to  be  the  setting,  the  local  colour  is 
almost  exclusively  Castilian.  M.  Merimee  suggests  that  a 
play  with  Castilian  setting,  probably  based  upon  Italian  mater- 
ials, fell  into  Timoneda's  hands  and  was  revised  by  him  and 
published  as  his  own  work.  This  original  was  considerably 
abridged,  and  the  early  incidents  were  included  in  the  prologue 
so  that  the  later  portions  might  be  understood.  For  my  part, 
I  doubt  whether  we  have  sufficient  evidence  to  deny  to  Ti- 
moneda  the  authorship  of  this  play.  The  confusion  of  names  is 
not  very  important,  and  so  far  as  the  local  colour  is  concerned, 
it  may  be  argued  that  Timoneda  composed  the  play  for  some 
traveling  company  and  adapted  his  local  allusions  to  a  Casti- 
lian audience.  It  was  a  common  practice  in  both  Latin  and 
Italian  comedy  to  include  some  of  the  preliminaries  in  the  pro- 
logue in  order  to  secure  unity  of  action,  and  to  a  certain  degree, 
unity  of  time.  The  Comedia  de  Carmelia  seems  to  me  to 
give  evidence  of  the  same  skill  in  construction  and  dialogue 
that  we  find  in  some  of  the  original  scenes  of  the  Comedia  de 
Amphitrion  and  Comedia  de  los  Menemnos. 

In  1565  a  volume  entitled  Turiana,  containing  six  plays 
namely,  Comedia  FUomena,  Far  fa  Paliana,  Comedia  Aurelia, 
Farfa  Trapacera,  Farfa  Rosalina  and  Farfa  Floriana,  and  a 
number  of  entremeses,  was  published  at  Valencia  by  Joan 
Diamonte,  an  obvious  anagram  of  Timoneda.  The  publica- 
tion of  the  volume  was  delayed  for  some  reason  since  the  first 


SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

three  plays  bear  the  date  1564.  All  of  these  plays  are  in  verse 
and,  with  the  possible  exception  of  the  Farfa  Trapacera,  are 
far  inferior  to  any  dramatic  work  published  by  Timoneda 
under  his  own  name.  We  have  no  right,  and  it  would  in  this 
case  be  unjust,  to  ascribe  to  him  authorship  which  he  himself 
did  not  claim. 

The  prologue  to  the  Comedia  Filomena  promises  us  an  un- 
familiar theme,  which  turns  out  to  be  the  well-known  story  of 
the  violation  of  Philomela,  narrated  by  Ovid,  and  dramatized 
in  Italy  by  Parabosco,  Gregorio  Corraro  and  Lodovico  Do- 
menichi,  and  in  Spain  by  Guillen  de  Castro  and  Rojas  Zorrilla. 
The  impertinence  of  the  inevitable  bobo  fails  to  relieve  the 
gruesome  details  of  the  play  which  is,  from  every  point  of 
view,  ridiculous. 

The  impression  created  on  the  reader  of  the  Farfa  Paliana 
is  akin  to  the  nightmare  of  the  first  scene,  the  consequences 
of  which  are  developed  in  the  play.  The  action  covers  some 
twenty  years,  beginning  with  the  exposure  of  a  newly-born 
baby  by  its  parents,  and  ending  with  its  ultimate  recovery 
under  preposterous  circumstances.  The  play  has  not  a  single 
redeeming  quality. 

The  influence  of  Torres  Naharro  is  discernible  in  the  di- 
vision into  five  acts  of  the  Comedia  Aurelia,  which  on  internal 
evidence  may  be  ascribed  to  the  early  part  of  iSob.1  The 
exposition  is  given  in  the  first  act,  the  denouement  in  the  fifth, 
and  the  interval  is  filled  up  with  wholly  irrelevant  matter. 
The  plot,  which  deals  with  the  recovery  of  the  missing  half 
of  a  ring,  thus  enabling  a  brother  and  sister  to  gain  posses- 
sion of  their  patrimony,  is  highly  fantastic,  and  scarcely  de- 
serves notice.  A  paso  in  which  a  Portuguese,  Spaniard, 
Biscayan  and  Frenchman  discuss  in  an  almost  unintelligible 
jargon  questions  of  national  honour,  resembles  a  similar  in- 
cident in  the  Comedia  Tinellaria,  and  there  are  also  minor 
similarities  with  the  Comedia  Aquilana  and  Comedia  Calamita. 

1Merimee,  op.  cit.,  p.  158. 


LOPE  DE  RUEDA  125 

By  far  the  best  of  the  plays  included  in  Turiana  is  the  Farfa 
Trapacera,  which  unfortunately  is  extant  only  in  an  incom- 
plete form.  This  is  a  close  adaptation  of  Ariosto's  La  Lena, 
and  owes  most  of  its  interest  to  its  diverting  original. 

The  Farfa  Rosalina  is  essentially  undramatic.  In  the  first 
scene,  two  friends  who  have  suffered  much  from  the  hand  of 
Fate,  determine  to  renounce  the  world,  and  toward  the  end 
of  the  play,  reach  a  monastery,  after  resisting  successfully 
the  assaults  of  World.  The  five  pages  that  have  been  pre- 
served of  the  Farfa  Floriana,  the  last  play  included  in  the! 
Turiana,  are  not  sufficient  for  us  to  form  any  judgment  con- 
cerning its  nature  or  value. 

Timoneda's  interest  in  the  stage  was  likewise  responsible  fof 
the  preservation  of  three  plays  by  Alonso  de  la  Vega,  namely, 
the  Comedia  Tholomea,  Tragedia  Seraphina  and  Comedia  de 
la  duquesa  de  la  Rosa,  published  by  him  in  1566.  We  know 
little  of  this  dramatist,  save  that  he  was  an  actor  and  died  at 
Valencia  between  1560  and  1566.  The  Comedia  Tholomea  is 
based  upon  the  unexplained  resemblance  between  two  youths, 
both  named  Tholomeo,  and  the  confusion  in  identity  resulting 
from  the  substitution  of  one  for  the  other  by  their  nurse. 
The  denouement  is  far  less  convincing  than  in  the  first  patrana 
of  Timoneda's  Patranuelo  (1566)  which  deals  with  the  same 
story,  and  which  specifically  states  that  it  had  appeared  in 
dramatic  form.  It  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  both  writers 
worked  from  a  common  source,  and  that  the  extravagant 
ending  of  the  Comedia  Tholomea,  with  its  accompaniment  of 
mythological  characters,  is  wholly  due  to  Alonso  de  la  Vega. 
The  comic  scenes  clearly  show  the  influence  of  Lope  de  Rueda. 

The  Tragedia  Seraphina  is  a  completely  unsuccessful  at- 
tempt to  give  a  pastoral  and  mythological  setting  to  a  comedy 
of  intrigue.  As  Menendez  y  Pelayo  remarked,  the  poetical 
idea  of  a  maiden  enamoured  of  Cupid  and  the  death  of  the 
lovers  in  a  lonely  forest,  contains  the  elements  of  a  lyrical 
drama  of  real  beauty,  but  the  play  is  marred  by  frequent  lapses 
from  good  taste,  and  by  the  irritating  interruptions  and  com- 
ments of  the  comic  characters. 


I26          SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

Far  superior  is  the  Comedia  de  la  duquesa  de  la  Rosa, 
which  is  introduced  by  a  caso  de  amor  with  pastoral  setting 
analogous  to  the  prologues  of  Timoneda's  three  comedies. 
This  play,  as  well  as  the  seventh  patrana  of  Timoneda,  is 
based  upon  Bandello's  story  entitled  A  more  di  Don  Giovanni 
di  Mendozza  e  della  Duchessa  di  Savoja,  or  upon  some  text 
derived  from  it.  However,  Alonso  de  la  Vega  attributes  tq 
the  duchess  a  dignity  and  nobility  of  character  which  she  does 
not  possess  in  the  other  versions.  Her  passion,  as  Menendez 
y  Pelayo  says  in  his  excellent  appreciation,  is  the  chaste  re- 
collection of  an  innocent  love  of  childhood,  and  her  pilgrimage 
is  an  act  of  piety.  When  she  meets  Dulcelirio  at  Burgos,  no 
sign  of  recognition  is  given,  save  that  he  offers  her  a  cup 
containing  the  ring  she  had  given  him  years  before  when  he 
was  taking  leave  of  her  father's  court.  Alonso  de  la  Vega 
rarely  rises  above  mediocrity,  but  in  a  few  scenes  of  this 
play,  he  shows  a  capacity  for  poetic  feeling  and  delicate  fancy. 

Except  that  it  is  composed  in  coplas  de  pie  quebrado,  the! 
influence  of  Lope  de  Rueda  is  apparent  in  the  anonymous 
Farsa  Rosiela,  preserved  in  an  edition  of  1557.  The  play  rests 
upon  a  case  of  mistaken  identity,  and  its  theme  is  that  gentility 
must  reveal  itself  whatever  be  one's  accidental  station  in  life. 
It  bears  a  certain  resemblance  to  the  many  plays  of  the  follow- 
ing century  which  have  a  prindpe  villano  as  the  central  figure.1 

The  well-known  story  of  Griselda  was  dramatized  by  Pedra 
Navarro  in  his  Comedia  muy  exemplar  de  la  marquesa  de 
Salusia,  llamada  Griselda.  An  actor,  manager  and  playwright 
named  Navarro,  contemporaneous  with  Lope  de  Rueda,  was 
praised  enthusiastically  by  Cervantes,  Rojas  Villandrando  and 
Lope  de  Vega,  and  while  there  is  nothing  in  this  play  to  justify 
such  eulogies,  his  identification  with  the  author  of  this  play  is 
probably  correct.  Its  immediate  source  is  not  the  Decameron, 
but  Foresti's  Supplementum  chronicorum  orbis  ab  initio  mundi, 
which  was  translated  into  Spanish  by  Vinoles  in  1510,  and  also 

'See  J.  Gomez  Ocerin's  edition  of  Velez  de  Guevara's  El  rey  en  su 
imagination,  Madrid,  1920,  pp.  109-13. 


LOPE  DE  RUED A  I2j 

Timoneda's  Patranuelo.  The  play  defies  unity  of  time,  for  it 
opens  with  Galtero's  offer  of  marriage  to  Griselda,  and  ends 
with  the  restitution  of  her  child  twelve  years  later.  It  re- 
quires Griselda-like  patience  to  read  the  five  acts  of  this 
bungling  adaptation  of  Boccaccio's  story. 

In  Spanish,  as  in  other  countries  of  Europe,  the  performance 
of  Latin  plays  was  regarded  as  an  important  feature  of  the  in- 
struction in  Latin  and  rhetoric.  These  performances  were 
encouraged  by  the  University  authorities  because  it  was  real- 
ized that  they  served  the  pedagogical  purpose  of  familiarizing 
students  with  colloquial  Latin.  We  know,  for  example,  that 
betwen  1531  and  1539,  five  performances  of  Latin  plays  were 
given  by  students  of  the  recently  organized  Studi  General  of 
Valencia,  including  a  presentation  of  a  play  of  Plautus  in 
1532.  Occasionally,  the  old  Roman  comedies  were  replaced 
by  Latin  translations  of  well-known  contemporaneous  plays 
or  by  original  compositions  that  represented  a  compromise  be- 
tween classical  practice  and  modern  taste.  The  Statutes  of 
the  University  of  Salamanca,  in  1538,  mention  performances 
before  the  students  of  comedies  of  Plautus  and  Terence,  or 
tragicomedies. 

The  history  of  the  School  Drama  in  Spain  is  only  imper- 
fectly known,  and  its  study  is  rendered  particularly  difficult  be- 
cause of  the  rarity  of  the  texts.  The  earliest  of  these  plays 
of  which  we  have  any  record  is  the  Hispaniola  by  the  Erasmist, 
Juan  Maldonado,  composed  in  Latin  prose  and  in  five  acts.1 
It  is  said  to  have  been  written  in  1519,  and  was  performed 
in  Portugal,  and  with  great  applause  at  Burgos.  The  earliest 
extant  edition  was  printed  at  Burgos  in  1535,  and  there  was 
an  earlier  edition  of  Valladolid.  Plautus  was  the  author's 
model,  and  the  play  deals  with  the  rivalry  of  two  young  men 
for  a  young  woman's  love. 

Of  greater   significance   is  the   dramatic   activity   of   Juan 

JI  know  this  only  from  the  note  by  A.  Bonilla  y  San  Martin  in  his 
translation  of  Fitzmaurice-Kelly's  Historia  de  la  literatura  espanola, 
Madrid,  1901,  p.  2ym. 


I2g          SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

Perez  who  occupied  the  Chair  of  Rhetoric  at  the  University 
of  Alcala  from  about  1537  until  his  death  in  1545  at  the  age 
of  thirty-three  years.  We  are  told  that  he  often  entertained 
the  University  with  his  comedies,  four  of  which,  the  Necro- 
manticus,  Lena,  Suppositi  and  Decepti,  were  published  at 
Toledo  by  his  brother  in  1574.  The  first  three  were  translated 
from  Ariosto,  and  the  last  from  the  anonymous  Gl' Ingannati. 
It  is  likely  that  Perez  was  also  the  author  of  a  brief  Latin 
comedy  performed  at  Alcala  before  Prince  Philip  in  1539  or 
1540  with  the  title  Ate  relegata  et  Minerva  restituta.  Here 
the  author  attempts  to  reconcile  the  privileges  of  the  University 
with  the  rights  of  the  archbishop,  and  to  win  for  the  University 
the  sympathy  of  Archbishop  Juan  Tavera  who  already  showed 
a  disposition  to  insist  upon  what  he  believed  to  be  his  pre- 
rogative. Minerva  relates  to  Mercury  her  peregrinations  in 
various  lands,  meeting  everywhere  with  deceptions  and  disap- 
pointments, until  she  established  herself  in  the  great  Univer- 
sity founded  by  Cisneros.  But  still  she  is  not  at  peace,  for 
Ate  and  Momus,  with  their  slanderous  tongues,  are  trying  to 
create  discord  between  the  Archbishop  and  the  University. 
If  they  succeed,  Minerva  will  be  banished  from  Alcala.  This 
little  play  did  not,  apparently,  aid  in  the  settlement  of  the 
dispute  here  presented  over  the  control  of  the  University's  af- 
fairs, but  it  gives  a  good  idea  of  the  special  purpose  that  might 
be  served  by  a  School  play. 

The  most  prominent  figure  in  the  Spanish  School  drama 
was  the  Aragonese  Lorenzo  Palmyreno,  who,  as  professor  at 
the  Studi  General  of  Valencia,  attempted  by  means  of  the 
drama  to  make  classical  studies  popular,  and  who  restored 
to  Valencia  its  academic  stage.  Selections  from  three  of  his 
plays,  namely,  the  Comcedia  Lobenia,  (1546),  Comcedia  Sig- 
onia  and  Comcedia  Octavia,  were  published  in  1566.  These 
are  too  fragmentary  to  allow  us  to  form  a  definite  opinion  as 
to  their  value,  but  it  is  evident  that  by  the  use  of  prose,  oc- 
casional dialogues  in  Castilian  and  conventional  incidents  of 
the  comedy  of  intrigue,  he  attempted  to  give  a  classical  setting 


LOPE  DE  RUED  A 


129 


to  modern  material.  There  is  still  less  of  Plautus  and  Te- 
rence, and  a  predominance  of  Castilian  over  Latin,  in  his 
Fabella  JEnaria,  performed  at  the  University  in  1574.  The 
action  is  laid  during  the  reign  of  Vespasian,  but  the  vicissitudes 
of  the  Prince  Alberto,  who  falls  in  love  with  the  daughter  of 
a  king  of  D  enmark,  effects  his  escape  from  prison  with  her  aid 
and  wins  her  hand  by  his  valor  in  single  combat,  are  thor- 
oughly romantic.  We  cannot  question  the  author's  explana- 
tion that  he  had  imitated  Spanish  farces,  and  not  the  serious 
art  of  Terence,  in  order  to  please  his  audience. 

We  have  already  noted  that  in  the  Nativity  scene  of  Inigo 
Lopez  de  Mendoza's  Vita  Christi,  and  in  the  Christmas  plays 
of  Juan  del  Encina,  Gil  Vicente,  Lucas  Fernandez  and  their 
successors,  shepherds  appear  whose  quarrels  and  games  en- 
liven the  presentation  of  incidents  of  sacred  story,  and  whose 
ignorance  served  as  a  pretext  for  the  explanation  of  theolo- 
gical doctrines.  Singing  and  dancing  were  prominent  features 
of  these  compositions,  but  only  in  Encina's  second  Egloga  en 
requesta  de  am  ores  are  a  song  and  dance  employed  to  separate 
two  scenes.  In  a  similar  manner,  the  Egloga  de  Placida  y 
Vitoriano  is  divided  into  two  parts  or  acts  by  a  song,  and  two 
shepherd's  scenes  are  introduced  for  the  sake  of  comic  relief. 

In  the  course  of  time,  the  incidental  comic  scenes  were  de- 
veloped with  more  or  less  detail  and  completeness  until  they 
possessed  unity  of  action,  without  reference  to  the  play  of 
which  they  formed  a  part.  Such,  for  example,  is  the  trick 
played  upon  Gomecio  by  Lenicio  at  the  opening  of  the  fourth 
act  of  the  Comedia  Serafina  of  Torres  Naharro.  An  incident 
of  the  first  act  of  the  Comedia  Calamita,  in  which  Jusquino 
convinces  Torcazo  of  his  supposed  relationship  to  him,  and  the 
description  of  the  trick  by  which  Fileo  relieves  Torcazo  of 
certain  provisions,  have  dramatic  unity,  and  in  content  and 
spirit  resemble  the  pasos  of  Lope  de  Rueda.  A  similar  use 
of  comic  scenes,  without  organic  connection  with  the  princpal 
action,  is  also  found  in  the  Comedia  Radiana  and  Comedia 
Tesorina.  The  characters  of  these  comic  scenes,  which  later 


SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

were  to  form  an  independent  genre,  are  invariably  taken  from 
the  lower  classes  of  society. 

Several  plays  of  Sanchez  de  Badajoz  contain  excellent  ex- 
amples of  a  brief  action  completely  developed  and  with  little 
relationship  to  the  chief  plot.  The  Farsa  del  rey  David  pre- 
sents an  amusing  contest  between  a  shepherd  and  a  Portuguese, 
and  the  Farsa  de  Moysen  a  somewhat  similar  scene  between  a 
shepherd  and  a  negro.  In  the  Farsa  Teologal,  a  shepherd 
frightens  a  braggart  soldier  almost  to  death  with  a  jack  o' 
lantern.  The  soldier  explains  that  severe  toothache  had  caused 
him  to  faint,  and  an  obliging  French  dentist  extracts  two 
teeth  before  his  hapless  victim  confesses  the  truth.  This 
episode  has  dramatic  unity,  and  the  same  is  true  of  the  last 
scenes  of  the  Farsa  de  Salomon,  which  can  bear  comparison 
with  the  best  pasos  of  Lope  de  Rueda.  The  Farsa  Militar 
contains  an  independent  farcical  scene  that  recalls  Timoneda's 
Passo  de  dos  tie  go  s  y  un  mofo. 

At  least  three  of  the  later  plavs  of  Gil  Vicente  show  the  de- 
velopment of  a  comic  incident  into  a  separate  entity.  The 
diverting  episode  of  Ninguem  and  Todo  a  Mundo  has  no 
definite  relationship  with  the  Auto  da  Lusitania  (1532),  and 
the  religious  element  in  Os  mysterios  da  Virgem  (1534)  is  so 
completely  overshadowed  by  the  delightful  interlude  of  Mofina 
Mendes  that  the  latter  gives  to  the  play  a  new  title.  The 
Floresta  de  enganos  (1536)  is  introduced  by  a  witty  scene  in 
Castilian,  which  is  followed  by  a  brief  picaresque  incident  in 
Portuguese,  and  both  of  these  are  mutually  independent  and 
unrelated  to  the  rest  of  the  play. 

It  is  evident  from  the  above  examples  that  by  the  third 
decade  of  the  sixteenth  century,  a  farcical  scene  with  dra- 
matic unity  and  with  characters  drawn  from  the  lower  classes, 
was  occasionally  employed  for  the  sake  of  comic  relief,  or 
to  serve  as  an  introduction,  in  which  case  it  replaced  the  earlier 
dramatic  monologue.  We  do  not  know  how  long  before  the 
middle  of  the  sixteenth  century  the  term  paso  was  applied  to 
these  independent  scenes,  nor  at  what  period  they  were  first 


LOPE  DE  RUED A  131 

regarded  as  a  separate  dramatic  type.  The  same  uncertainty 
exists  with  respect  to  the  term  entremes,  which  seems  to  have 
been  first  used  in  Catalan  and  Valencian  territory,  and  which 
after  being  employed  with  the  meaning  of  entertainment  in 
its  broadest  sense,1  and  show  or  pageant,  finally  became  syno- 
nymous with  paso.  The  earliest  recorded  use  of  the  name 
entremes  with  the  meaning  that  was  to  prevail  later,  occurs 
in  the  prologue  to  the  comedia  of  Sepulveda  of  the  year  1 547. 
The  word  is  also  used  to  designate  an  amusing  scene  in 
Sebastian  de  Horozco's  Representation  de  la  historia  evangelico 
del  capitulo  nono  de  Sanct  Joan,  in  which  a  lawyer  completely 
fleeces  a  client  before  undertaking  his  case,  and  which  belongs 
to  approximately  the  same  period.  Sebastian  de  Horozco  is 
also  the  author  of  an  entremes  without  title,  performed  at 
Toledo  on  St.  John  the  Evangelist's  day.  This  vivid  picture 
of  picaresque  types,  with  its  pronounced  clerical  satire,  must 
have  produced  a  strange  impression  upon  the  audience  of  nuns 
for  which  the  author  states  that  it  was  written. 

While  it  is  true  that  Lope  de  Rueda  was  not  the  creator  of 
the  paso,  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  he  perfected  this  new 
literary  type.  An  appendix  to  Timoneda's  edition  of  Rueda's 
comedies  and  colloquies,  published  at  Valencia  in  1567,  con- 
tains a  list  of  the  pasos  contained  in  these  plays  which  might 
be  transferred  to  other  compositions.  This  clearly  indicates 
that  these  farcical  scenes  were  regarded  as  independent  en- 
tities, which  might  be  used  in  any  play  without  reference  toi 

1It  appears  that  originally  the  term  entremes  was  applied  to  food 
served  at  a  banquet  in  some  ingenious  form.  For  example,  after  a 
banquet  given  to  celebrate  the  coronation  of  dona  Sibila  by  Pedro  IV 
in  1381,  a  fine  entremes  was  served,  which  consisted  of  a  peacock,  ela- 
borately prepared  and  bearing  verses  expressing  loyalty  to  the  Queen. 
The  name  of  entremes  given  to  this  gastronomic  triumph  in  the  Catalan, 
text  indicates  its  relationship  to  the  French  entremets  and  Latin  inter- 
missum.  Some  critics  have  accepted  the  statement  of  Agustin  de  Rojas 
in  his  Loa  de  la  comedia  that  the  entremeses  received  their  name 
"  porque  iban  entre  medias  de  la  farsa ",  but  this  explanation  rests  only 
upon  popular  etymology. 


SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

the  original  context.  The  Comedia  Armelina  contains  one 
episode  of  this  sort,  in  which  the  moza  Mencieta  attempts  to 
cure  the  simple  Guadalupe  of  chronic  drowsiness,  and  the 
Comedia  de  los  enganados  has  another,  in  which  the  stupidity 
of  the  simple  Pa j ares  furnishes  the  comic  element.  The  amus- 
ing paso  of  the  rufidn  cobarde  Vallejo  in  the  second  scena  of 
the  Comedia  Eufemia  and  the  paso  of  the  lackey  Polo  and  the 
negress  Eulalla  in  the  seventh  scene  of  the  same  play,  serve  to 
fill  in  the  time  required  for  a  change  of  scene.  The  Comedia 
Medora  opens  with  a  highly  diverting  paso  of  the  discomfiture 
of  the  rufidn  cobarde  Gargullo,  and  the  second  and  fourth 
scenas  of  the  same  play  present  bits  of  roguery,  which  are  so 
frequently  described  in  these  detachable  scenes.  The  Coloquirt 
de  Camila  includes  two  pasos,  and  whatever  interest  the  Co-' 
loquio  de  Tymbria  may  possess  is  due  to  its  five  pasos.  In  the 
course  of  time,  the  use  of  certain  characters  in  these  brief 
episodes  became  conventional,  and  in  the  prologue  to  his  Ocho 
comedias,  'Cervantes  speaks  of  the  skill  of  Lope  de  Rueda  in 
acting  entremeses  "  de  negra,  de  ruf  ian,  de  bobo  y  de  viz- 
caino  ". 

A  collection  of  seven  pasos  of  Lope  de  Rueda  "para  poner 
en  principios  y  entremedias  de  colloquios  y  comedias "  was 
published  at  Valencia  by  Timoneda  in  1567  with  the  title  El 
deleitoso.  Two  of  these,  the  fifth  and  seventh,  were  adapted 
to  serve  as  opening  scenes,  and  the  others  were  suitable  for 
use  as  interludes.  The  first  deals  with  the  inability  of  the 
lackey  Luquitas  and  the  simple  Alameda  to  explain  to  Salcedo's 
satisfaction  their  long  absence  from  the  house,  and  ends  with 
the  conventional  paliza.  Two  of  the  same  characters  appear 
in  the  second  paso,  which  allows  us  to  assume  that  these  scenes 
originally  formed  part  of  the  same  play.  Here  Salcedo  plays 
upon  the  credulity  of  Alameda,  who  proves  in  a  moment  of 
inspiration  that  he  is  not  so  great  a  fool  as  his  master  believed. 
The  third,  often  called  Cornudo  y  contento,  describes  the  sac- 
rifice made  by  the  simple  Martin  to  cure  his  wife  of  her  illness, 
while  she  diverts  herself  with  a  young  student.  The  fourth 


LOPE  DE  RUED  A 

paso,  called  by  Moratin  El  convidado,  describes  the  embar- 
rassment of  an  impecunious  student  who,  after  inviting  a 
fellow-townsman  to  dinner,  is  obliged  for  financial  reasons 
to  feign  illness  in  order  to  cancel  the  engagement  gracefully, 
and  is  betrayed  by  another  student  in  whom  he  had  confided. 
The  scene  was  probably  based  upon  an  actual  occurrence,  and  is 
related  as  such  in  both  El  crotalon  and  El  escolastico  of  Cris- 
tobal de  Villalon.  The  fifth  shows  how  easily  the  simple 
Mendrugo  is  robbed  of  his  provisions  while  he  listens  to  a 
glowing  account  of  the  delights  of  the  Land  of  Cockayne. 
An  ingenious  theft  is  also  the  subject  of  the  sixth.  The 
seventh,  commonly  called  Las  aceitunas,  describes  a  quarrel 
between  man  and  wife  over  the  price  they  will  ask  for  olives 
that  are  not  yet  planted.  This  is  the  best  one-act  play  written 
in  Spain  in  the  sixteenth  century,  and  has  pleased  audiences  in 
our  own  day. 

The  six  pasos  "  asi  de  lacayos  como  de  simples  y  otras 
diversas  figuras "  of  Lope  de  Rueda  "  y  otros  diversos 
autores",  published  by  Timoneda  in  1570  in  a  volume  entitled 
Registro  de  representantes,  have  less  literary  and  dramatic 
merit  than  those  just  mentioned,  but  show  that  the  form  has 
become  fixed,  with  characters  and  situations  which  in  the 
course  of  time  became  conventional.  The  first  presents  a  scene 
frequently  found  in  later  entremeses,  in  which  a  pair  of  rogues 
attempt  to  prescribe  for  their  master's  patients  during  his 
absence,  with  lamentable  consequences.  The  second  describes 
the  success  of  two  students  in  a  school  for  thieves,  in  reliev- 
ing a  simple  of  his  provisions  by  a  clever  trick.  In  the  third, 
the  simple  Rodrigo  de  Toro  uses  the  argument  of  a  club  to 
escape  from  a  trap  that  has  been  set  for  him.  In  the  fourth, 
a  cut-purse  is  unable  to  evade  the  officers  of  the  law,  in  spite 
of  his  glib  tongue  .The  fifth  is  a  paso  de  rufian  cobarde, 
which  closely  resembles  the  second  scene  of  the  Comedia 
Eufemia.  The  theme  of  the  sixth  is  the  unsuccessful  attempt 
of  the  simple  Pancorbo  to  shift  upon  another  the  responsibility 
for  having  eaten  a  pound  of  sweets. 


SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

In  these  compositions,  no  attempt  is  made  to  create  a  back- 
ground, nor  to  study  character.  The  length  of  the  action  is 
the  same  as  the  time  required  to  present  it,  and  no  more. 
There  is  no  exposition  of  a  plot,  for  the  action  is  too  rapid, 
and  besides,  the  situation  is  rarely  complex.  A  couple  of 
hungry  fellows  may  meet  a  peasant  carrying  provisions.  The 
audience  knows  at  once,  without  explanation,  that  there  will 
be  a  contest  of  wits,  with  the  food  as  the  prize.  The  basis 
of  these  plays  is  usually  a  time-worn  deception  or  practical 
joke,  which  was  susceptible  of  countless  new  settings  and 
variations. 

There  is  much  similarity  between  some  of  the  characters  of 
the  pasos  and  of  the  Italian  commedia  dell'arte,  and  structurally 
the  paso  or  entremes  served  the  same  function  as  the  lazzo  or 
intermedia  of  the  Italian  plays,  but  there  is  no  definite  evidence, 
at  least  in  the  sixteenth  century,  of  any  influence  of  the  corn- 
media  dell'arte  on  the  development  of  the  entremes. 

The  Entremes  del  mundo  y  no  natdie,  attributed  to  Lope  de 
Rueda  in  the  manuscript  in  which  it  is  preserved,  apparently 
was  written  to  introduce  a  religious  play.  Here  the  thesis  that 
to  him  that  hath  shall  be  given,  is  illustrated  by  a  brief  scene 
between  Mundo  and  No  Nadie,  which  even  in  its  crude  form! 
resembles  versions  of  the  Somebody  and  Nobody  conceit  found 
in  other  literatures.  It  shows  none  of  the  characteristics  of 
Lope  de  Rueda's  pasos,  and  its  verse  form  is  also  an  argument 
against  his  authorship.  The  fact  that  his  name  occurs  as  one 
of  the  characters  merely  proves  his  popularity  on  the  stage. 

The  title-page  of  the  Comedia  de  Amphitrion  states  that  the 
play  contains  "  graciosos  passos ",  but  Timoneda  evidently 
employed  the  term  in  the  sense  of  incident,  as  it  was  also  used 
by  Lopez  de  Villalobos  in  the  prologue  to  his  translation  of 
Amphitruo,  since  neither  Amphitrion  nor  the  other  two  plays 
of  Timoneda  include  irrelevant  comic  episodes  with  dramatic 
unity.  Several  such  scenes,  however,  are  found  in  the  volume 
of  anonymous  plays  published  by  Timoneda  in  the  volume 
entitled  Turiana  (1564-1565),  especially  in  the  Par  (a  Palianct 
and  Comedia  Aurelia. 


LOPE  DE  RUED  A  135 

The  same  volume  contains  five  "  passos  y  entremeses  "  in 
verse,  which  Timoneda  declares  were  intended  as  introductory 
scenes.  The  Entremes  de  un  ciego  y  un  mofo  y  un  pobre  pre- 
sents a  blind  man  who  is  asking  for  alms,  and  who  blames  his 
non-success  upon  Hernandillo,  his  guide.  The  latter  shows 
no  concern  over  the  threats  of  a  thrashing,  and  makes  sport 
of  his  master  when  he  tries  to  pitch  his  voice  in  a  particularly 
pathetic  key.  A  competitor  appears  in  the  person  of  another 
beggar;  they  begin  to  abuse  one  another  and  finally  come  to 
blows.  The  influence  of  Lazarillo  de  Tormes  is  still  more 
marked  in  the  Paso  de  dos  ciegos  y  un  mofo,  which  served  as 
a  prologue  to  some  Christmas  play.  Palillos  enters,  saying 
that  he  hopes  to  find  a  master  in  the  audience,  and  narrating 
humourously  his  qualifications.  He  is  not  a  thief,  he  declares, 
but  he  was  obliged  to  steal  six  ducats  from  his  last  master, 
a  blind  man  who  nearly  starved  him.  As  he  describes  his 
theft,  two  blind  men  approach  asking  for  alms,  and  in  one  of 
them,  Martin  Alvarez,  Palillos  discovers  his  late  master.  The 
two  beggars  recognize  one  another  and  begin  to  talk  of  pro- 
fessional matters.  Pero  Gomez  notes  that  his  companion  has 
no  guide,  and  Martin  narrates  his  experience  with  Palillos,  the 
greatest  rascal  he  ever  saw.  Palillos  overhears  the  compli- 
ment, and  decides  to  have  some  fun  at  their  expense.  Pero* 
confides  to  his  friend  that  it  is  safer  to  carry  money  on  one's 
person  than  to  leave  it  at  home  for  thieves  to  steal,  and  whis- 
pers that  he  has  five  or  six  ducats  hidden  in  his  hat.  At  that 
moment,  Palillos  snatches  Pero's  hat  and  runs  away,  while 
Pero  hotly  accuses  his  companion  of  the  theft,  which  Martin, 
indignantly  denies.  The  same  trick,  with  a  few  changes,  was 
described  by  Timoneda  in  his  twelfth  patrana,  but  the  drama- 
tic version  is  far  superior.1  In  the  arrangement  of  the  in- 
cidents and  in  the  individuality  given  to  Palillos,  this  can  stand 
comparison  with  any  of  Lazarillo's  experiences. 

The  Passo  de  dos  clerigos,  cura  y  benficiado,  y  dos  mOfos 

lThis  trick  has  much  in  common  with  the  first  part  of  the  well- 
known  French  fabliau,  Les  trois  aveugles  de  Compiegne. 


SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

suyos  simples  treats,  after  the  fashion  of  Sanchez  de  Badajoz, 
a  quarrel  between  two  unworthy  members  of  the  clergy  con- 
cerning their  respective  duties.  In  the  Passo  de  un  soldado,  un 
moro  y  un  hermitano,  a  Moor  is  the  victim  of  a  clever  trick 
played  upon  him  by  a  soldier.  The  Passo  de  la  Razon  y  la 
Fama  y  el  Tiempo  is  a  unique  example  of  a  paso  dealing  with 
allegorical  and  serious  material. 

In  addition  to  those  already  mentioned,  a  few  anonymous 
entremeses  have  been  published  from  sixteenth-century  man- 
uscripts. The  most  important  of  these  is  the  Entremes  de 
las  esteras,  contained  in  a  codex  of  ninety-six  plays,  of  which 
this  is  the  only  secular  one,  preserved  at  the  National  Library 
of  Madrid.  This  describes  effectively  the  possible  embarrass- 
ments that  attend  love-making  in  the  kitchen.  The  Entremes 
del  astrologo  borracho,  probably  of  the  year  1583,  is  a  rare 
example  of  the  use  of  drunkenness  on  the  Spanish  stage  for 
comic  effect.  Two  entremeses  without  title  treat  the  familiar 
theme  of  the  deceits  practised  by  a  wife  upon  a  stupid  hus- 
band, and  the  Entremes  de  un  viejo  que  es  casado  con  una 
mujer  moza,  which  has  a  similar  basis,  is  derived  from  the 
ninth  novella  of  the  Seventh  Day  of  the  Decameron.1  A 
rufidn  cobarde  plays  the  leading  role  in  the  Entremes  de  un 
muchacho  llamado  Golondrino,  and  the  pretentious  airs  of  a 
young  student  are  satirized  in  the  Entremes  de  un  hijo  que 
nego  a  su  padre.  The  cunning  exploits  of  thieves  are  des- 
cribed in  the  Segundo  entremes  de  los  ladrones  and  in  the 
Segundo  entremes  de  Pero  Hernandez.  All  of  these  were 
written  in  prose. 

These  short  comic  scenes  were  important  features  of  reli- 
gious as  well  as  secular  entertainments,  and  in  making  con- 
tracts for  Corpus  plays,  the  municipalities  usually  took  care 
to  stipulate  the  number  of  entremeses  to  be  performed  with 
each  auto.  In  a  number  of  cases,  the  words  "  Aqui  ha  de 

*G.  T.  Northup,  op.  cit.,  p.  xiii,  notes  that  the  same  situation  is  found 
in  a  scenario  printed  by  Bartoli,  entitled  Gli  Intrighi  d'Amore  owero  la 
finestra  incantata. 


LOPE  DE  RUED  A 


137 


haber  un  entremes '  in  the  manuscript  clearly  indicate  the  in- 
dependent nature  of  these  compositions.  We  have  compara- 
tively few  texts  of  entremeses  in  the  latter  part  of  the  century, 
but  there  is  no  doubt  that  they  continued  to  be  performed, 
and  that  they  enjoyed  the  public's  favour.  Furthermore,  the 
entremes  in  the  early  part  of  the  seventeenth  century  has  more 
points  of  contact  with  the  work  of  the  preceding  century  than 
has  any  other  dramatic  form.  To  the  reader  of  to-day,  the 
early  entremeses  are  a  source  of  unfailing  pleasure  because 
of  the  light  they  cast  upon  popular  manners,  customs,  supersti- 
tions and  language  of  the  sixteenth  century. 


CHAPTER  VII 

RELIGIOUS  DRAMA  IN  THE  LATTER  HALF  OF  THE  SIXTEENTH 

CENTURY 

THE  traditions  of  the  Christmas  plays  of  Encina  and 
Fernandez,  with  the  addition  of  a  pronounced  tendency  to- 
ward allegory  which  we  have  already  found  in  the  works  of 
Diego  Sanchez  de  Badajoz,  were  continued  in  a  few  com- 
positions of  the  latter  half  of  the  sixteenth  century.  A  play 
of  this  type  consisting  of  three  autos  or  scenes,  is  included  in 
an  edition  of  the  works  of  the  Portuguese  poet,  Jorge  de  Mon- 
temayor,  which  was  published  at  Antwerp  in  the  year  1554. 
It  was  performed  at  Christmas  matins  before  Prince  Philip, 
between  the  years  1548  and  1553.  The  first  scene  presents  in 
allegorical  fashion  the  disobedience  of  Adam  and  Eve  who* 
fall  victims  to  the  wiles  of  Sensuality,  and  the  promise  made 
by  Hope  of  the  birth  of  the  Redeemer  who  will  restore  to 
humanity  its  lost  'estate.  This  prophecy  is  fulfilled  in  the 
second  scene,  and  after  an  explanation  of  the  doctrine  of  Re- 
demption, Time  goes  off  to  Limbo  to  inform  Adam  of  Christ's 
birth.  The  third  scene  contains  more  popular  elements,  and 
ends  with  the  visit  of  three  shepherds  to  the  manger.  Comic 
elements  are  introduced  without  success  in  an  attempt  to  en- 
liven these  theological  discussions.  The  play  is  totally  lacking 
in  inspiration  or  interest,  and  it  is  hard  to  believe  that  the 
author  of  the  Diana  could  have  written  a  work  so  devoid  of 
merit. 

Still  more  primitive  is  the  Danza  del  santisimo  nacimiento  de 

nuestro  senor  Jesucristo  by  Pedro  Suarez  de  Robles,  printed 

at  Madrid  in  1561.     The  stage  directions  inform  us  that  the 

play   was   introduced   by   a  procession   in   which    shepherds, 

138 


RELIGIOUS  DRAMA 


139 


angels,  Joseph  and  the  Virgin  with  the  Christ  Child  marched 
to  the  high  altar,  where  the  Child  was  placed  in  a  manger. 
Dancing  and  singing  were  prominent  features  of  this  com- 
position, which  shows  little  advance  over  the  earliest  plays  of 
Encina.  An  angel  mounts  the  pulpit  and  announces  the  birth 
of  Jesus.  After  the  shepherds  recover  from  their  surprise, 
they  draw  near  to  the  manger  where  they  are  welcomed  by 
Joseph.  Each  of  the  shepherds  offers  a  gift  to  the  Christ 
Child,  the  Virgin  promises  them  her  protection,  and  the  play 
ends  with  the  song  of  shepherds  and  angels,  in  alternate 
couplets. 

The  only  extant  edition  of  El  pecador  by  Bartolome  Aparicio 
bears  no  date,  but  judging  from  its  general  character,  the  play 
seems  to  belong  to  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century.  The 
didactic  purpose  to  teach  theology  is  apparent  in  the  dispute 
between  Justice  and  Mercy  regarding  the  punishment  of  Sin- 
ner for  his  transgression,  and  the  explanation  of  the  doctrine 
of  Redemption.  Mercy  announces  the  incarnation  of  God 
in  a  Virgin,  and  the  play  ends  with  the  Nativity  scene. 

To  approximately  the  same  period  belongs  a  Co  media  a  la 
pastoril  para  la  noche  de  Navidad,  preserved  in  manuscript 
form  at  the  National  Library  of  Madrid.  Composed  in 
quintillas,  the  play  is  introduced  by  a  prologue  recited  by  a 
faraute  and  is  divided  into  three  estancias  or  stations,  which 
apparently  refer  to  the  place  of  representation.  The  third 
estancia  is  divided  into  two  nocturnos,  a  liturgical  word  that 
does  not  occur  in  any  other  Spanish  play  with  which  I  am 
acquainted.  The  manuscript  contains  interesting  informa- 
tion concerning  the  costumes  worn  by  the  various  characters. 
Music  played  an  important  part  in  the  performance,  and  a 
number  of  songs  were  introduced  which  were  doubtless  already 
familiar  to  many  of  the  spectators. 

The  play  shows  an  interesting  combination  of  the  dispute 
of  the  four  Virtues,  Mercy,  Peace,  Truth  and  Justice,  with 
the  Nativity  scene.  The  allegory  of  the  Four  Daughters  of 
God,  or  Proces  de  Dieu,  based  upon  Psalm  84:11,  "  Miseri- 


I40          SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

cordia  et  Veritas  obviaverunt  sibi;  Justitia  et  Pax  osculatae 
sunt ",  enjoyed  extraordinary  popularity  throughout  the  Mid- 
dle Ages.  The  author  followed  closely  the  version  of  the 
allegory  that  is  found  in  the  sermon  of  Bernard  de  Clair- 
vaux  entitled  In  Festo  Annuntiationis  Beatae  Mariae  Virginis, 
upon  which  nearly  all  the  dramatic  forms  of  the  story  in 
other  literatures  are  based.  In  the  Spanish  play,  however, 
the  dispute  serves  to  introduce  the  Nativity  rather  than  the 
Annunciation,  which  is  found  in  most  other  versions. 

The  anonymous  Farsa  del  sordo  shows  the  same  tendency 
toward  the  complete  secularization  of  the  Christmas  story  as 
Encina's  Egloga  de  las  grand  es  lluvias.  It  consists  of  a  series 
of  insignificant  scenes,  which  serve  to  introduce  the  announce- 
ment by  a  shepherd  of  Christ's  birth.  The  earliest  dated  edi- 
tion contains  a  license  to  print  of  the  year  1568.  The  ascrip- 
tion of  this  play  to  Lope  de  Rueda,  on  the  authority  of  an 
edition  of  1616,  in  which  his  name  appears  as  author,  must 
be  regarded  as  exceedingly  doubtful. 

The  Descent  from  the  Cross  is  described  in  an  anonymous 
Auto  de  la  quinta  angustia  que  nuestra  Senora  passo  al  pie  de 
la  cruz,  published  at  Burgos  in  1552.  After  an  introductory 
scene,  in  which  Joseph  of  Arimathaea  secures  permission  from) 
Pilate  to  place  in  a  sepulchre  the  body  of  the  Crucified  One, 
the  play  presents  the  grief  of  the  friends  of  Jesus  and  the 
anguish  of  the  Virgin  as  preparations  are  made  for  the  buriaL 
While  lacking  in  dramatic  power,  its  lyrical  qualities  imbue 
it  with  a  truly  devotional  spirit. 

The  Auto  llamado  Lucero  de  nuestra  salvation,  que  trata  del 
despedimiento  que  hizo  nuestro  Senor  Jesucristo  de  su  bendita 
madre  by  Ausias  Izquierdo  Zebrero,  first  published  in  1582, 
offers  more  human  interest  in  its  portrayal  of  the  efforts  of  the 
Virgin  to  dissuade  Jesus  from  going  to  Jerusalem  to  meet  his 
death.  He  entrusts  her  to  the  care  of  St.  John,  and  she  is 
then  left  alone  with  the  symbols  of  the  Passion. 

In  its  combination  of  themes  derived  from  the  Old  and* 
New  Testaments,  the  Victoria  de  Cristo  of  Bartolome  Palau 


RELIGIOUS  DRAMA 


141 


appears  at  first  sight  as  an  example  of  the  cyclic  type  of  com- 
position with  which  we  are  familiar  in  English  and  French 
literature,  but  in  reality  it  must  be  regarded  as  an  Easter  play, 
with  a  rather  detailed  exposition  of  Old  Testament  history 
interpreted  in  the  light  of  the  Resurrection.  Its  division  on  a 
chronological  basis  into  six  parts,  with  a  varying  number  of 
autos  or  scenes,  is  unique  in  the  Spanish  drama.  The  general 
subject  of  the  play  is  the  spiritual  captivity  of  mankind  as  a 
consequence  of  the  original  sin,  and  extends  from  the  diso- 
bedience of  Adam  and  Eve  to  the  Last  Judgment,  with  the 
redemption  of  mankind  through  Christ.  There  is  no  reason 
to  suppose  that  it  was  written  any  considerable  time  before 
1570,  the  year  of  its  earliest  dated  impression.  Its  popularity 
is  attested  by  the  publication  of  no  less  than  nine  editions, 
.and  it  is  still  performed  occasionably  in  Catalonia  and  Aragon. 

By  far  the  most  important  monument  of  the  Spanish  re- 
ligious drama  in  the  latter  half  of  the  sixteenth  century  is  al 
codex  of  ninety-six  plays  preserved  at  the  National  Library 
of  Madrid,  and  edited  by  Leo  Rouanet.  All  but  one  of  these, 
namely,  the  Entremes  de  las  esteras,  treat  sacred  themes,  and 
.all  are  anonymous,  with  the  exception  of  the  Auto  de  Cain  y 
Abel,  which  bears  the  signature  of  Maestro  Jaime  Ferruz.  In 
the  opinion  of  their  editor,  three  of  these  plays,  namely,  the 
Auto  del  robo  de  Digna,  Auto  de  los  desposorios  de  Moysen 
and  Auto  de  Naval  y  Abigail,  were  written  by  Lope  de 
Rueda.  All  but  three  are  in  verse,  with  the  quintilla  as  the 
prevailing  measure.  The  manuscript  copy  of  the  Auto  de  la 
Resurrection  de  Christ o  (LX)  contains  a  license  for  perfor- 
mance at  Madrid  in  1578,  and  a  number  of  the  compositions 
may  probably  be  identified  with  plays  performed  at  Seville. 
With  the  exception  of  two  coloquios,  derived  from  the  pastoral 
Coloquio  de  Fenisa,  and  the  Entremes  de  las  esteras,  these 
plays  bear  the  name  auto  or  farsa,  the  latter  being  used  to 
designate  allegorical  compositions  in  honor  of  the  Sacrament, 
while  the  former  was  apparently  applicable  to  any  type  of  re- 
ligious play. 


I42          SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

The  similarity  in  the  structure  and  spirit  of  these  plays  in- 
dicates that  their  authors  were  following  an  established  tradi- 
tion. They  begin  with  a  loa  or  argumento,  in  prose  or  verse, 
which  usually  includes  a  greeting  to  the  audience,  a  summary 
of  the  plot  and  a  request  for  silence.  They  generally  end 
with  a  villancico,  and  occasionally  are  divided  into  two  parts 
by  an  entremes,  which  is  sometimes  merely  indicated  in  a  stage 
direction.  It  is  the  comic  elements  that  are  chiefly  responsible 
for  their  air  of  similarity.  In  almost  all  of  them  a  clown 
appears,  designated  indiscriminately  as  pastor,  bobo,  villanti 
and  simple,  whose  dull  understanding  provokes  explanations 
concerning  theological  doctrines,  and  whose  silly  chatter,  im- 
pertinence and  fondness  for  food  afford  comic  relief  after 
serious  scenes. 

It  is  by  no  means  easy  to  classify  accurately  the  ninety-five 
religious  plays  of  this  codex,  nor  to  determine  on  what  festi- 
vals they  were  performed.  The  Aucto  del  rey  Nabucdonosof 
cuando  se  hlzo  adorar  (xiv)  is  inspired  by  the  spirit  of  peni- 
tence which  is  characteristic  of  Advent,  and  the  Auto  del 
sueno  de  Nabucdonosor  (XV),  with  Daniel's  prophecy  of  the 
Incarnation  as  its  central  point,  refers  to  the  same  season. 
La  justicia  divina  contra  el  peccado  de  Adan  (xliii)  presents 
a  version  of  the  allegory  of  the  Four  Daughters  of  God,  al- 
ready found  in  the  Comedia  a  lo  pastoril,  and  frequently  em- 
ployed as  an  introduction  to  'Christmas  plays.  In  this  case, 
only  two  sisters  appear,  Justice  and  Mercy,  and  the  dispute 
takes  place  shortly  after  the  disobedience  of  Adam.  The 
theme,  therefore,  is  not  the  immediate,  but  the  ultimate  re- 
demption of  man.  The  Aucto  de  los  hierros  de  Adan  (xliv) 
presents  the  release  of  Adam  and  his  sons  as  a  consequence 
of  the  Redemption.  The  Aucto  de  la  culpa  y  la  captividad  (xlv) 
describes  the  imprisonment  by  Guilt  and  Captivity  of  various 
characters  who  secure  their  freedom  through  the  announce- 
ment of  the  birth  of  Christ.  This  shows  the  influence  of 
Palau's  Victoria  de  Cristo,  except  that  these  incidents  are  here 
related  to  Christmas  instead  of  Easter.  A  shepherd  who  has 


RELIGIOUS  DRAMA 


143 


heard  the  angel's  song  serves  to  connect  the  Aucto  de  la  cir- 
cuncision  de  nuestro  Senor  (li)  with  the  Christmas  festival, 
and  another  post-Christmas  play  is  the  Aucto  de  la  huida  de 
(sic)  Egipto  (Hi),  to  which  the  prophecies  of  Christ's  destiny, 
pronounced  ingenuously  by  a  band  of  gipsies,  impart  a  real 
charm.  While  in  subject  matter  these  plays  are  related  to  the 
Advent  and  Christmas  seasons,  we  cannot  definitely  state  that 
they  were  performed  on  Christmas  day,  with  the  exception  of 
the  Aucto  de  la  Culpa  y  la  Captividad,  which  on  internal 
evidence  may  be  called  a  Christmas  play. 

Five  plays,  namely,  the  Aucto  de  la  degollacion  de  Sant  Juan 
Baptista  (xxxv),  Aucto  del  hijo  prodigo  (xlviii),  Auto  de  la 
entrada  de  Crist o  en  Jerusalen  (xlvi),  Auto  de  la  conversion 
de  la  Madalena  (Ixiv)  and  Auto  del  hospedamiento  que  hizti 
Samcta  Maria  a  Christo  (Ivi)  deal  with  incidents  of  the  Ministry 
of  Christ.  The  first  presents  with  unusual  dramatic  power  the 
execution  of  John  the  Baptist.  The  Aucto  del  hijo  prodigd 
sketches  only  in  briefest  outlines  the  Prodigal's  downfall,  and 
is  far  inferior  to  Luis  de  Miranda's  Comedia  Prodiga.  The 
Auto  de  la  entrada  de  Crist  o  en  Jerusalen  treats  with  simple 
dignity  the  scene  of  Christ's  entry  into  Jerusalem  and  the  driv- 
ing of  the  money-changers  from  the  temple.  The  transfor- 
mation of  a  sinful  woman  into  a  devoted  disciple  of  Jesus  is 
pleasingly  described  in  the  Auto  de  la  conversion  de  la  Mada- 
lena. Less  interesting  is  the  Auto  del  hospedamiento  que  hizo 
San  eta  Marta  a  Christo,  which  deals  with  undramatic  material. 

Five  plays,  namely,  the  Auto  del  despedimiento  de  Christo 
de  su  madre  (liv),  Aucto  del  descendimiento  de  la  crua 
(xciii),  Aucto  de  la  resurrecion  de  nuestro  Senor  (xcv)  and 
two  plays  entitled  Auto  de  la  resurrection  de  Christo  (Ix)  and 
(Ixi),  deal  with  incidents  related  to  Christ's  Passion  and  Re- 
surrection, and  were  presumably  performed  on  Good  Friday 
and  Easter;  and  two  plays,  the  Auto  de  la  destruicion  de 
Jerusalen  (xxx)  and  Auto  de  la  redencion  del  genero  humano 
(xciv),  are  also  related  to  the  Easter  festival. 

The  Auto  del  despedimiento  de  Christo  de  su  madre  recalls 


SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

Ausias  Izquierdo  Zebrero's  Lucero  de  nuestra  salvation,  but 
contains  less  symbolism,  and  emphasizes  the  element  of  physi- 
cal horror  in  Christ's  description  to  the  Virgin  of  the  suffer- 
ings he  must  endure  on  the  Cross.  The  Aucto  del  descendi- 
miento  de  la  cruz  closely  resembles,  even  in  minor  details,  the 
Auto  de  la  quinta  angustia,  already  discussed.  The  Aucto  de 
la  resurecion  de  nuestro  Senor  (xcv)  is  a  regrettable  attempt 
to  popularize  the  Easter  play  by  the  introduction  of  trivial  in- 
cidents. Descended  from  the  OMcium  Peregrinorum,  the 
play  presents  the  appearance  of  Christ  to  the  Virgin,  Mary 
Magdalen  and  other  disciples  after  the  Resurrection.  The 
author  displays  execrable  taste  in  the  description  of  Christ's 
interview  with  Mary  Magdalen,  and  the  final  scene,  in  which 
certain  of  the  apostles  engage  in  a  game  with  Lucifer,  is 
scarcely  less  objectionable.  The  Auto  de  la  resurrection  de 
Christo  (Ix)  performed  at  Madrid  on  Easter,  1578,  contains 
popular  and  allegorical  figures,  and  centers  about  the  account 
of  the  Harrowing  of  Hell,  recited  by  Time.  Even  less  dra- 
matic is  the  Auto  de  la  resurrection  de  Christo  (Ixi),  which 
consists  of  a  conversation  between  the  four  Evangelists  and 
two  allegorical  figures  concerning  the  doctrine  of  Redemption. 
The  Aucto  de  la  destruicion  de  Jerusalen  treats  in  a  spirited 
manner  the  legend  of  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  by  Vespa- 
sian in  return  for  his  miraculous  cure  from  leprosy.  The 
Aucto  de  la  redencion  del  genero  humano  presents  with  alle- 
gorical figures  the  Harrowing  of  Hell,  and  with  the  exception 
of  a  few  additions  and  changes,  is  identical  with  the  sixth  part 
of  Palau's  Victoria  de  Cristo. 

Three  plays  entitled  Aucto  de  la  Asuncion  de  nuestra  Senora 
(xxxi,  xxxii  and  Ixii),  to  which  may  be  added  the  Auto  de 
la  Assumption  de  nuestra  Senora,  not  included  in  the  codex 
under  discussion,  but  published  by  Rouanet  in  the  Appendix 
to  that  collection,  the  Colloquio  de  Fenisa  en  loor  de  nuestra 
Senora  (Ixv),  and  the  Auto  de  accusation  contra  el  genero 
humano  (Ivii),  were  all  written  in  honor  of  the  Virgin.  The 
Colloquio  de  Fenisa  is  an  insipid  version  a  lo  divino  of  the 


RELIGIOUS  DRAMA 


145 


pastoral  composition  with  the  same  title,  already  mentioned, 
which  seems  to  have  enjoyed  an  undeserved  popularity.  The 
Auto  de  acusacion  contra  el  genero  humano  presents  a  trial 
scene  in  which  Satan  lays  claim  to  the  possession  of  Mankind, 
the  Virgin  acts  as  his  advocate,  and  Christ  serves  as  judge. 
Its  source  is  a  version  of  the  Processus  Belial,  attributed  to 
Bartolus,  which  had  extraordinary  vogue  throughout  the 
Middle  Ages.  The  theme  recalls  the  Catalan  Mascaron,  and 
analogues  in  other  European  literatures.1 

Eleven  plays  contained  in  this  same  manuscript  deal  with 
lives  of  Saints,  namely,  the  Auto  de  Sant  Jorge  quando  mato  la 
serpiente  (xxvi),  Aucto  de  Sanct  Christoval  (xxvii),  Aucto 
de  un  milagro  de  Sane  to  Andres  (xxviii),  Aucto  de  quando 
Sancta  Helena  hallo  la  cruz  de  Nuestro  Senor  (xxxiii),  Auto 
del  martyrio  de  Sancta  Barbara  (xxxvii),  Aucto  del  martyrio 
de  Sancta  Eulalia  (xxxviii),  Auto  de  San  Francisco  (xxxix), 
Aucto  de  la  prision  de  Sant  Pedro  (xlvii),  Aucto  de  la  visita- 
tion de  Sant  Antonio  a  Sant  Pablo  (Ixxvi),  Aucto  de  la  con- 
version de  Sant  Pablo  (Ixiii)  and  Auto  del  martyrio  de  Sant 
Justo  y  Pastor  (xxix).  The  last  was  probably  written  by 
Alonso  de  Torres,  and  performed  at  the  University  of  Alcala 
in  1568.  In  honour  of  the  same  festival,  a  Representation  de 
los  martires  Justo  y  Pastor  was  composed  by  Francisco  de  las 
Cuebas.  A  manuscript  of  the  National  Library  of  Madrid, 
which  contains  this  play,  furnishes  valuable  information  con- 
cerning the  construction  of  pageants  and  the  use  of  stage 
machinery  about  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century. 

Twenty-six  plays  not  already  mentioned,  and  included  in 
the  manuscript  published  by  Rouanet,  treat  Old  Testament 
material,  and  it  appears  that  those  subjects  were  chosen  which 
would  serve  to  illustrate  the  close  symbolic  connection  between 
Christ  and  the  patriarchs  of  the  Old  Testament.  The  Auto~ 
del  peccado  de  Adan  (xl),  Auto  de  la  prevarication  de  nuestro 

1  See  J.  P.  W.  Crawford,  The  Catalan  Mascaron  and  an  Episode  in 
Jacob  van  Maerlant's  Merlijn,  Publications  of  the  Modern  Language 
Association  of  America,  vol.  xxvi,  1911. 


I46    SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

padre  Adan  (xlii),  and  the  Auto  de  Cain  y  Abel  (xli),  the 
latter  by  the  Valencian  humanist  Jaime  Ferruz,  treat  of  the 
Fall  and  the  story  of  Cain  and  Abel,  while  the  Auto  de  quando 
Abrahan  se  fue  a  tierra  de  Canaan  (iii),  Aucto  de  Abrahan 
quando  vencio  los  quatro  reyes  (xxii),  Auto  del  destierro  de 
Agar  (ii),  Auto  del  sacreficio  de  Abraham  (i)  and  Auto  de 
los  desposorios  de  Isac  (v  and  vi),  treat  incidents  in  the  life 
of  Abraham.  The  Aucto  de  quando  Jacob  fue  huyendo  a  las 
tierras  de  Aran  (iv),  Aucto  de  la  lucha  de  Jacob  con  el  angel 
(xi),  Auto  del  robo  de  Digna  (viii),  and  Aucto  del  finamiento 
de  Jacob  (xii),  deal  with  the  story  of  Jacob.  The  Auto  de 
los  desposorios  de  Joseph  (xx)  describes  an  incident  in  the  life 
of  Joseph,  and  the  Auto  de  los  desposorios  de  Moysen  (xlix) 
and  Aucto  del  Magna  (x)  deal  with  Moses.  It  will  be  seen  that 
these  subjects  correspond  to  the  lectiones  and  responsoria  in 
Septuagesima,  Sexagesima  and  the  Quadregesimal  season.  It 
is  probable  that  most,  if  not  all,  of  these  plays  were  written 
for  the  Corpus  Christi  festival. 

The  remaining  plays  of  this  manuscript  treating  Old  Testa- 
ment subjects,  namely,  the  Aucto  de  la  ungion  de  David  (xix), 
Auto  de  Naval  y  Abigail  (Hx),  Auto  de  la  muerte  de  Adonias 
(xxxvi),  Auto  de  Sanson  (xiii),  Auto  del  rey  Asuero  quando 
desconpuso  a  Basti  (xvi),  Auto  del  rey  Assuero  quando  ahorcd\ 
aAman  (xvii),  Aucto  de  la  lepra  de  Naaman  (xviii),  Auto  del 
sacrificio  de  Jete  (xxiv),  Auto  de  la  paciencia  de  Job  (xcvi) 
and  Auto  de  Tobias  (xxi),  represent  a  widening  of  the  scope 
of  Old  Testament  material  for  use  in  Corpus  Christi  plays. 

The  tendency  toward  allegory  and  symbolism,  foreshadowed 
in  the  Farsa  sacramental  of  Lopez  de  Yanguas  and  in  certain 
plays  of  Sanchez  de  Badajoz,  prevailed  in  the  second  half  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  and  these  elements  served  as  a  basis 
for  the  further  development  of  the  autos  sacramentales  in 
the  following  century.  Thirty-three  plays  of  this  type  are 
included  in  the  codex  under  discussion,  and  all  of  these  refer 
to  the  Eucharist  and  the  festival  of  Corpus  Christi. 

The  Farsa  sacramental  de  la  residencia  del  hombre    (ix) 


RELIGIOUS  DRAMA  147 

and  the  Auto  de  la  residencia  del  hombre  (1)  recall  by  their 
juristic  setting  the  Auto  de  acusacion  contra  el  genero 
humano,  but  here  it  is  not  original  sin,  but  sin  in  general, 
which  must  be  expiated  by  contrition  and  penitence,  and  the 
author's  aim  is  to  explain  the  Eucharist  rather  than  the  doc- 
trines of  the  Incarnation  and  Redemption.  The  Aucto  de  la 
Verdad  y  la  Mentira  (Iv)  Farsa  del  triunpho  del  sacramento 
(Ixxxi),  Farsa  del  Sacramento  de  las  ires  coronas  (Ixxxii), 
Farsa  sacramental  de  la  fuente  de  la  gratia  (Ixxxvi),  and 
Farsa  sacramental  llamada  Desafio  del  honbre  (xc),  describe 
the  victory  of  the  forces  of  good  over  evil.  The  Farsa  del 
sacramento  de  Moselina  (Ixxviii),  Farsa  del  sacramento  de  los 
tres  estados  (Ixxxiii),  and  Farsa  del  sacramento  de  la  entrada 
del  vino  (Ixxxviii),  contrast  the  Christian  and  Jewish  dispen- 
sations. 

There  is  little  evidence  to  support  the  theory  that  the  autos 
sacramentales  were  frequently  employed  in  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury as  a  weapon  against  Protestantism.  Rarely  do  we  find 
in  these  doctrinal  plays  even  a  reference  to  heresy.  Only 
three  plays  in  this  codex  are  devoted  primarily  to  a  refutation 
of  heterodoxy.  The  Farsa  del  sacramento  de  las  cortes  de 
la  yglesia  (Ixviii),  is  a  glorification  of  the  Church  militant  as. 
represented  by  the  tribunal  of  the  Inquisition,  while  hatred 
of  Luther  and  his  teachings  finds  expression  in  the  Farsa  del 
sacramento  de  Peralforja  (Ixxii)  and  Farsa  sacramental  de  lot 
moneda  (Ixxxiv). 

The  symbolism  of  the  Eucharist  is  described  in  the  Farsa 
del  sacramento  del  Amor  divino  (vii),  Farsa  del  sacramento 
de  los  sembradores  (Ixx),  and  Farsa  del  sacramento  llamada 
Prematica  del  pan  (Ixxv),  which  was  rewritten  by  Timoneda 
with  the  title  Aucto  de  la  fee  or  La  pragmatica  del  pan,  and 
performed  at  Valencia  in  1570.  Transubstantiation  is  the  sub- 
ject of  the  Farsa  del  sacramento  (Ixix),  and  the  Evangelists; 
and  various  saints  are  employed  in  the  Farsa  del  sacramento 
(Ixxxvii)  and  Farsa  del  sacramento  de  los  quatro  Evangelistas 
(Ixxxix)  to  explain  the  Eucharist.  The  Colloquio  de  fide- 


I48  SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

ypsa  (Ixvi)  is  still  another  version  a  lo  divino  of  the  Coloquid 
de  Fenisa,  and  the  fragmentary  Auto  (Ixvii)  also  has  a  pas- 
toral setting. 

It  is  difficult  to  discover  the  relationship  to  the  Corpus  festi- 
val of  the  Aucto  del  emperador  Juveniano  (xxiii),  which  is 
derived  from  a  story  of  the  Gesta  Romanorum.  The  Aucta 
de  los  triunfos  de  Petrarca  (Iviii)  gives  a  theological  setting 
to  the  Trionfi  of  Petrarch,  and  the  Farsa  del  sacramento  de 
la  esposa  de  los  cantares  (Ixxiii)  derives  its  inspiration  from 
the  Song  of  Songs.  The  Farsa  del  sacramento  de  la  fuente 
de  San  Juan  (Ixxi)  explains  the  Sacraments,  and  was  re- 
written by  Timoneda  and  performed  at  Valencia  in  1570, 
with  the  title  Aucto  de  la  fuente  de  los  siete  sacramentos.  The 
Farsa  del  sacramento  del  engano  (Ixxiv)  is  derived  from  the 
Farsa  del  mundo  y  moral  of  Lopez  de  Yanguas.  The  Farsa 
del  sacramento  del  pueblo  gentil  (Ixxiv)  treats  of  the  conver- 
sion of  the  sinner ;  the  Farsa  del  sacramento  del  entendimiento 
nino  (Ixxxv)  teaches  that  understanding  is  vain  without  a 
knowledge  of  God,  and  the  Farsa  del  sacramento  de  Adan 
(xci)  treats  of  redemption  through  faith. 

The  Farsa  del  sacramento  llamada  de  los  lenguajes  (Ixxx) 
is  a  linguistic  medley,  that  reminds  us  of  a  scene  in  Torres 
Naharro's  Comedia  Tinellaria,  and  the  Farsa  del  sacramento 
de  los  cinco  sentidos  (Ixxix)  anticipates  Calderon  in  the  alle- 
gorical use  of  the  five  senses  in  Corpus  plays.  The  Farsa 
sacramental  de  las  bodas  de  Espana  (xcii)  presents  Spain  as 
the  champion  of  Catholicism.  It  was  performed  at  Toledo  on 
Corpus  Christi  day,  1570,  and  its  title  refers  to  the  projected 
marriage  of  Philip  II  to  Anne  of  Austria.  The  Aucto  de 
las  donas  que  embio  Adan  a  nuestra  Senora  (liii)  recalls 
Gomez  Manrique's  Representacion  del  nacimiento  de  nuestrd 
Senor  in  its  use  of  the  symbols  of  the  Passion. 

In  the  year  1575,  eleven  years  after  the  appearance  of  his 
Tres  comedias,  Juan  de  Timoneda  published  two  volumes  of 
religious  plays  with  the  title  Ternarios  sacramentales.  Four 
of  these  plays  are  in  Castilian,  and  the  remaining  two  were 


RELIGIOUS  DRAMA 

composed,  for  the  most  part,  in  Valencian.  It  is  probable 
that  Timoneda  resumed  playwriting  as  a  consequence  of  the 
interest  of  Juan  de  Ribera,  Archbishop  of  Valencia,  in  Corpus 
plays,  with  which  he  had  become  acquainted  at  Badajoz  and 
Seville.  Religious  plays  had  been  performed  at  Valenci^ 
for  many  years  on  Corpus  Christi  day,  but  these  had  been 
limited  to  scenes  from  the  Old  and  New  Testament,  and  were 
not  utilized  specifically  for  an  explanation  of  the  Eucharist. 
Timoneda's  plays,  therefore,  in  which  this  element  was  em- 
phasized, constituted  an  innovation  in  that  city.  He  only 
claims  the  two  Valencian  plays,  Aucto  del  castillo  de  Emaus 
and  Auto  de  la  Iglesia,  as  original  compositions,  and  for  these 
we  have  no  reason  to  question  his  authorship.  With  respect 
to  the  Castilian  plays,  he  frankly  states  in  the  titles  that  they 
are  revisions  of  earlier  works,  three  of  which  are  extant. 
The  Aucto  de  la  fuente  de  los  siete  sacrament os  and  Aucto  de 
la  fee  are  rifacimenti  of  the  Farsa  del  Sacramento  de  la  fuente 
de  San  Juan  and  Farsa  del  sacramento  llamada  Prematica  del 
pan,  respectively,  both  of  which  are  found  in  the  codex  pub- 
lished by  Rouanet.  The  original  of  the  Aucto  de  la  oveja 
perdida,  which  treats  the  Parable  of  the  lost  sheep,  is  found 
in  a  play  with  the  same  title,  preserved  in  manuscript  form 
at  the  Academy  of  History  of  Madrid.  Los  desposorios  de 
Cristo,  which  presents  the  Parable  of  the  marriage  of  the 
king's  son,  is  a  revision  of  earlier  plays  that  are  not  known 
to  be  extant. 

The  Danse  macabre,  which  exercised  a  gruesome  fascina- 
tion throughout  the  Middle  Ages,  was  treated  dramatically  by 
the  Segovian  Juan  de  Pedraza  in  his  Farsa  llamada  Dansa  de 
la  Muerte,  published  in  1551,  and  composed  in  coplas  de  arte 
mayor.  Here  three  characters,  a  Pope,  king  and  a  lady  of 
questionable  virtue  are  confronted  by  Death,  and  carried  away 
by  him  in  spite  of  their  protests.  The  chief  figure  is  the 
jovial  shepherd  who  recites  the  prologue,  and  whose  questions 
elicit  from  Reason  an  explanation  of  the  mystery  of  the 
Eucharist.  It  is  probable  that  the  same  author  may  be  identi- 


I50          SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

fied  with  the  Segovian,  Juan  Rodrigo  Alonso,  "  que  por  otro 
nombre  es  llamado  de  Pedraza,"  who  published  in  the  same 
year  the  Comedia  de  Sancta  Susana,  a  pleasing  dramatiza- 
tion in  double  redondillas  of  the  familiar  story  found  in  the 
thirteenth  chapter  of  the  Book  of  Daniel. 

The  Auto  de  las  cortes  de  la  Muerte  recalls  Pedraza's 
Danza,  de  la  Muerte  and  Sanchez  de  Badajoz's  Farsa  de  let 
Muerte,  as  well  as  the  Sorrowful  Knight's  encounter  with  a 
troupe  of  strolling  players  who  had  just  performed  El  auto  de 
la-s  cortes  de  la  Muerte,  as  narrated  in  the  eleventh  chapter  of 
the  second  part  of  Don  Quixote.  It  was  published  in  1557 
by  Luis  Hurtado  de  Toledo,  who  states  in  the  prologue  that  he 
had  completed  the  work  which  had  been  begun  by  Micael  de 
Carvajal.  We  may  assume  that  the  greater  part  of  this  com- 
position was  written  by  Luis  Hurtado  de  Toledo,  for  it  is  in 
no  sense  worthy  of  the  author  of  the  Tragedia  Josefina. 
Death  convokes  a  great  assembly  to  which  are  summoned  re- 
presentatives of  many  social  classes.  Interminable  dialogues 
are  held  in  which  Satan,  World  and  Flesh  present  charges 
against  the  various  characters,  while  St.  Augustine  and  St. 
Francis  serve  as  attorneys  for  the  defense.  The  length  of  the 
play — about  8000  lines  in  double  quintillas — seems  to  preclude 
the  possibility  of  representation. 

The  same  undramatic  quality  is  found  in  the  earliest  play  of 
Bartolome  Palau  entitled  Farsa  llamada  Custodia  del  hombre, 
in  five  jornadas,  and  published  in  1 547.  Composed  in  honour 
of  the  Corpus  Christi  festival,  it  contrasts  in  allegorical  fashion 
the  paths  of  virtue  and  evil,  and  contains  in  the  first  Jornada- 
a  combination  of  the  Processus  Belial  and  Four  Daughters  of 
God  themes,  which  we  have  seen  in  other  plays.  Far  more 
important  is  Palau's  Historia  de  la  gloriosa  Santa  Orosia,  in 
six  autos,  which  was  probably  written  about  the  middle  of  the 
century.  This  play  has  peculiar  interest  as  the  earliest  dra- 
matic composition  in  Spain  dealing  with  national  history.  Its 
author,  a  native  of  Burbaguena,  had  a  local  pride  in  the  story 
of  Santa  Orosia,  who  was  held  in  especial  veneration  at  Jaca, 


RELIGIO  US  DRAMA  !  5  r 

Huesca  and  Tarragona.  According  to  the  legend  used  by 
Palau,  Roderic,  the  last  of  the  Visigothic  kings,  sends  an  ambas- 
sador to  Bohemia  to  ask  for  the  hand  of  Princess  Orosia. 
The  latter  sets  little  store  upon  worldly  honours  and  longs  to 
enter  a  convent,  but  she  finally  accepts  the  proposal  of  the 
Spanish  king,  which  seems  to  offer  certain  advantages  to  her 
people.  In  the  meantime,  Roderic  casts  lustful  eyes  upon  la 
Cava,  who  informs  her  father,  Count  Julian,  of  her  violation 
by  the  King.  The  infuriated  father  summons  the  Moors  to 
invade  Spain,  and  it  is  a  band  of  these  Moslems  that  intercepts 
Orosia  and  her  retinue  who  are  on  their  way  to  meet  the  King. 
Orosia  meets  this  ordeal  with  strength  and  constancy,  prefer- 
ring to  die  rather  than  yield  herself  to  the  enemies  of  her  faith. 
There  is  considerable  dramatic  power  shown  in  the  interview 
between  Roderic  and  la  Cava,  and  the  martyrdom  of  Orosia 
is  effectively  described.  The  play  is  pleasing  in  its  combina- 
tion of  romantic  and  religious  elements.  Palau  wrote  another 
play,  probably  of  a  similar  type,  entitled  Historia  de  Santa 
Librada  y  sus  ocho  hermanas,  which  is  not  extant. 

The  development  of  the  Corpus  Christi  festival  into  a  great 
civic  holiday  and  the  supervision  exercised  by  the  municipal 
authorities  over  the  dramatic  performances  of  that  day,  gave 
increased  importance  to  the  Corpus  plays  during  the  latter 
half  of  the  century,  at  the  expense  of  Christmas,  Passion  and 
Easter  plays,  which  did  not  enjoy  official  support.  Documents 
discovered,  particularly  in  the  archives  of  Seville,  Madrid, 
Valladolid,  Valencia  and  Badajoz,  attest  the  importance  at- 
tached by  the  municipalities  to  these  performances,  and  we 
may  assume  that  in  other  cities,  and  even  in  small  towns,  the 
celebration  of  Corpus  Christi  day  was  not  considered  complete 
without  the  procession  of  movable  cars  upon  which  members 
of  the  guilds  or  a  company  of  strolling  players  presented  ai 
play  or  plays,  more  or  less  directly  related  to  the  mystery  of 
the  Eucharist.  This  practice  even  crossed  the  seas,  for  we 
know  that  religious  plays  were  performed  in  the  Colonies, 
both  in  the  native  languages  and  in  Castilian.1 

1  References  to  these  are  found  in  an  article  by  E.  C.  Hills  entitled 


152 


SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 


As  elsewhere  in  Europe,  religious  plays  were  performed  in 
Jesuit  schools  in  Spain  during  the  latter  half  of  the  sixteenth 
century  to  celebrate  important  Church  festivals,  particularly 
Corpus  'Christi.  A  Latin  tragedy  entitled  Saul  furens  by  Padre 
Dionisio  Vazquez  was  performed  at  Plasencia  in  I554,1  under 
the  auspices  of  the  Jesuit  Society,  and  the  tendency,  which 
later  was  to  prevail,  of  introducing  comic  characters  drawn 
from  the  lower  classes  of  society,  already  appears  in  a  play 
entitled  Nineusis,  comedia  de  divite  epulone,  probably  by  Juan 
de  Valencia,  a  writer  of  the  time  of  Charles  V.  Seven  plays 
of  the  Jesuit,  Padre  Acevedo,  some  of  which  were  in  Latin, 
others  in  Castilian,  and  still  others  bi-lingual,  were  performed 
at  Seville  and  Cordova  between  the  years  1556  and  1572.  The 
same  variety  of  language  is  found  in  the  manuscript  plays 
performed  at  Jesuit  schools  in  the  last  third  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  and  preserved  at  the  Academy  of  History  at  Madrid. 
These  plays,  which  deserve  to  be  better  known,  present  an  in- 
teresting combination  of  sacred  material,  with  entremeses  after 
the  manner  of  Lope  de  Rueda. 

The  Quechua  Drama,  Ollanta,  published  in  the  Romanic  Review,  vol. 
v,  1914.  .See  also  F.  A.  de  Icaza,  Origenes  del  teatro  en  Mexico, 
Boletin  de  la  Real  Academia  espanola,  vol.  ii,  1915. 

Teatro  espanol  del  siglo  XVI,  Madrid,  1885,  p.  137. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
TRAGEDY  AND  LATER  COMEDY 

WHILE  in  general  outlines  the  development  of  comedy  in 
Italy  and  Spain  followed  parallel  paths  in  the  first  half  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  Italy  anticipated  Spain  by  nearly  sixty  years 
in  the  composition  of  tragedies  based  upon  classical  models. 
The  plays  of  Seneca  had  been  translated  into  Castilian  by  the 
beginning  of  the  fifteenth  century,1  but  there  is  no  evidence 
that  they  awakened  any  desire  to  perform  Latin  tragedies  at 
that  time,  either  in  the  original  or  in  translation.  Spanish 
poets  seem  to  have  cared  little  about  the  traditions  of 
classical  tragedy,  and  they  were  slow  to  follow  the  example  of 
Trissino  and  Giraldi  Cinthio  who  introduced  into  Italy  the 
theories  and  practice  of  Greek  and  Latin  playwrights. 

Even  the  incidents  of  Roman  history  offered  little  attraction 
to  Spanish  dramatists  of  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
and  only  two  extant  plays  of  that  period,  namely,  the  Farsa 
o  tragedia  de  la  castidad  de  Lucrecia  and  the  Tragedia  de  los 
amores  de  Eneas  y  de  la  reyna  Dido,  treat  such  material. 
Little  is  known  of  the  latter  play,  save  that  it  was  printed  in 
1536.  The  former  was  written  by  Juan  Pastor,  author  of  a 
Christmas  play  printed  in  1528,  and  we  may  assume  that  the 
Tragedia  de  la  castidad  de  Lucrecia  belongs  to  approximately 
the  same  period.  This  play,  composed  in  quintillas  de  pie  que- 
brado  and  without  division  into  acts  or  scenes,  has  nothing  in 
common  with  classical  tragedy.  The  scenes  of  the  violation  of 
Lucrece  and  her  self-inflicted  death  are  not  without  interest, 

*For  an  account  of  the  early  Castilian  translations  of  Seneca,  see 
Mario  Schiff,  La  Bibliotheque  du  Marquis  de  Santillane,  Paris,  1905, 
p.  130. 

153 


SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

but  are  marred  by  the  incessant  impertinences  of  a  bobo.  It 
deserves  attention  only  as  a  precursor  of  the  plays  of  Juan  de 
la  Cueva  on  Roman  history. 

The  Spanish  translations  of  Greek  tragedies  in  the  sixteenth 
century  seem  to  have  had  no  influence  upon  the  development  of 
the  drama.  Hernan  Perez  de  Oliva  made  a  free  translation  in 
prose  of  the  Electro,  of  Sophocles,  published  in  1528  with  the 
title  La,  venganza  de  Agamemnon,  the  first  version  of  Sophocles 
in  any  modern  language,  and  a  translation  of  Euripides' 
Hecuba,  with  the  title  Hecuba  trisie,  which  was  not  printed 
until  1586.  It  is  likely  that  these  translations  were  based 
upon  Latin  versions,  since  Perez  de  Oliva  nowhere  refers 
to  a  knowledge  of  Greek.  His  purpose  was  not  to  make  an 
accurate  rendering  of  these  masterpieces  of  Greek  drama,  but 
to  prove  that  their  lofty  ideas  might  be  adequately  expressed 
in  Castilian.  He  wished  to  communicate  to  his  contempor- 
aries the  inspiration  which  he  himself  felt,  and  did  not  hesitate 
to  alter  the  form  in  order  to  make  his  own  versions  more 
intelligible.  He  abandons  the  division  into  acts  and  the 
metrical  structure,  suppresses  certain  characters  and  changes 
the  order  of  scenes,  and  replaces  the  traditions  of  Greek  re- 
ligion by  moral  atmosphere  based  upon  Christian  sentiments. 
Many  of  the  beauties  of  his  originals  were  lost  in  his  adapta- 
tions, but  his  plays  have  especial  interest  as  the  first  attempts 
to  interpret  the  Greek  drama  to  a  Spanish  audience. 

Unhappily,  his  innovations  had  little  effect  upon  the  deve- 
lopment of  humanism  in  Spain.  In  1543,  the  poet  Boscan 
translated  a  play  of  Euripides,  which  was  never  printed,  and 
Pedro  Simon  Abril,  the  translator  of  Terence,  is  said  to  have 
translated  Plutus  of  Aristophanes  and  Medea  of  Euripides 
in  1570.  These  close  the  list  of  translations  or  adaptations  of 
classical  tragedies  in  the  sixteenth  century.  In  view  of  the 
interest  shown  throughout  Europe  in  the  revival  of  Greek  and 
Latin  studies,  it  is  surprising  that  not  a  single  tragedy  on 
classical  lines  is  known  to  have  been  composed  in  Spain  be- 
fore 1577,  the  date  of  publication  of  Nise  lastimosa  and  Nise 


TRAGEDY  AND  LATER  COMEDY 

laureada,  for  which  their  author,  Jeronimo  Bermudez,  justly 
claimed  the  title  of  "  primeras  tragedias  espanolas  ". 

The  long  controversy  regarding  the  originality  of  Nise 
lastimosa  may  be  regarded  as  settled,  and  it  is  now  generally 
conceded  that  Bermudez  read  in  manuscript  a  play  entitled 
Castro  by  the  Portuguese  poet  and  dramatist,  Antonio  Fer- 
reira,  and  translated  it  almost  line  for  line.  Ferreira  was  born 
at  Lisbon  in  1528,  and  studied  at  the  University  of  Coimbra. 
Besides  two  comedies,  Bristo  and  Cioso,  based  upon  classical 
and  Italian  comedy,  he  wrote  a  considerable  amount  of  verse 
in  the  Italian  manner,  which  entitled  him  to  rank  second  only 
to  Sa  de  Miranda  among  his  contemporaries.  At  that  time 
Coimbra  had  become  the  center  of  classical  influences,  chiefly 
owing  to  the  famous  Scotch  humanist,  George  Buchanan,  who 
not  only  encouraged  the  students  to  represent  classical  plays, 
but  also  showed  his  interest  in  the  drama  by  composing  two 
tragedies,  Jephtes  and  Joanties  Baptist®,  which  were  per- 
formed there  in  1542.  It  is  to  these  college  performances 
that  we  owe  Ferreira's  Castro,  the  first  Portuguese  tragedy 
composed  according  to  classical  models.  In  writing  this  play, 
he  did  not  seek  his  material  in  Livy,  as  was  so  often  done  in 
Italy,  but  chose  a  familiar  incident  of  Portuguese  history  of 
the  fourteenth  history.  The  chronicles  told  the  sad  story  of 
Inez  de  Castro  who  suffered  cruel  death  because  of  her  love 
for  the  Infante  Pedro,  and  who  "  despois  de  ser  morta,  foi 
Rainha  ".  Camoens,  who  immortalized  the  story  in  the  third 
canto  of  Os  Lusiadas,  refers  to  the  living  tradition  in  a  superb 
stanza  of  his  epic.  The  death  of  Inez  de  Castro  has  exercised 
a  fascination  upon  poets  and  playwrights  for  centuries.  It 
has  inspired  not  less  than  ten  Portuguese  plays,  and  four  in 
Spanish,  the  best  known  of  which  is  Velez  de  Guevara's 
Reinar  despues  de  morir. 

Ferreira's  tragedy  was  written  between  1553  and  1567,  dur- 
ing which  time  he  was  professor  of  law  at  Coimbra,  and  it 
was  performed  by  the  University  students  under  his  personal 
direction.  The  interest  of  the  performance  was  doubtless 


156 


SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 


enhanced  by  the  proximity  of  the  places  mentioned  in  the 
play.  From  the  hill  overlooking  the  "  saudosos  campos  "  of 
the  Mondego,  the  students  could  see  the  old  Santa  Clara  Con- 
vent where  Inez  de  Castro  was  interred  before  that  solemn 
burial  in  the  cathedral  of  Alcoba9a,  and  also  the  lovely  Quinta 
das  Lagrimas  and  the  tall  cypress  trees  sheltering  the  Fonte 
dos  Amores,  where  the  lovers  were  wont  to  meet,  and  where, 
two  hundred  years  before,  Inez  was  put  to  death  by  the  hand 
of  assassins.  Ferreira  died  of  the  plague  at  Lisbon  in  1569. 
His  tragedy  was  not  published  until  1587,  although  it  had 
circulated  freely  in  manuscript  before  that  time.  It  appeared 
in  a  revised  edition  in  1598. 

Castro  gives  evidence  of  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  both 
Greek  and  Latin  tragedy.  The  function  of  the  chorus  seems 
to  be  a  compromise  between  the  practice  of  Seneca  and  of  the 
Greek  dramatists.  Stichomythia  is  frequently  employed,  and 
the  role  of  the  attendant  of  Inez  betrays  a  classical  origin. 
There  are  also  a  number  of  textual  borrowings  from  Seneca, 
especially  in  the  choral  odes.  However,  Ferreira  had  the 
good  taste  to  avoid  the  worst  faults  of  the  Latin  dramatist, 
and  he  obtains  his  effects  by  simplicity,  restraint  and  poetic 
language  rather  than  by  declamation  and  brutality.  Whether 
it  was  due  to  his  study  of  Greek  drama  or  to  his  innate  sense 
of  propriety,  the  play  is  marked  by  a  restraint  which  is  re- 
freshing to  one  who  has  been  a  witness  of  the  scenes  of  car- 
nage and  bloodshed  found  in  Seneca,  Argensola,  Virues  and 
the  Italian  tragedies  composed  after  the  Orbecche  of  Giraldi 
Cinthio.  The  prevailing  verse  form  is  the  verso  solto  of 
eleven  syllables,  with  occasional  lines  of  seven  syllables,  a 
measure  which  probably  shows  the  influence  of  Trissino.  The 
choral  odes  have  rich  metrical  structure,  including  the  canzone, 
sapphics,  sapphics  with  adonics,  and  verso  solto  of  seven  sylla- 
bles. 

Bermudez's  version  of  Castro,  entitled  Nise  lastimosa,  to- 
gether with  Nise  laureada,  its  continuation,  was  published  at 
Madrid  in  1577  under  the  pseudonym  of  Antonio  de  Silva. 


TRAGEDY  AND  LATER  COMEDY 

The  plays  were  composed  while  Bermudez  was  a  reader  in 
theology  at  the  University  of  Salamanca,  and  they  were  com- 
pleted by  the  year  1575,  the  date  of  their  dedication  to  the 
Count  of  Lemos. 

The  Spanish  version,  in  which  the  heroine  appears  as  Nise, 
an  anagram  of  Ines,  follows  closely  the  Portuguese  text,  and 
adds  no  new  incidents.  The  role  of  the  chorus  is  restricted 
in  the  main  to  the  singing  of  choral  odes  between  the  acts.  A 
few  changes  were  also  made  in  the  arrangement  of  scenes  and 
there  is  evidence  of  independent  borrowing  from  Seneca, 
especially  from  Phaedra.  No  line-by-line  comparison,  how- 
ever, can  give  an  adequate  idea  of  the  great  superiority  of  the 
original  over  the  translation.  The  work  of  the  scholar,  in- 
spired by  a  love  for  the  classics,  is  nearly  always  pleasing,  but 
the  theologian  too  frequently  replaces  the  poetry  and  grace  of 
the  original  by  moralizing  platitudes  and  vapid  rhetoric. 

In  Nise  laureada,  Bermudez  displays  his  shortcomings  as  a 
dramatist  when  obliged  to  rely  upon  himself  for  inspiration. 
The  theme  is  the  disinterment  and  coronation  of  Ines  de 
Castro  after  Pedro's  accession  to  the  throne,  and  the  horrible 
death  inflicted  by  him  upon  her  murderers.  The  fate  of  the 
latter  is  a  foregone  conclusion,  and  each  act  is  filled  with 
wearisome  monologues  and  interminable  dialogues  until  the 
exitus  horribilis  at  the  close.  Like  the  preceding,  the  play 
is  divided  into  five  acts,  and  the  chorus  not  only  serves  to 
fill  in  the  intermissions  with  choral  songs,  but  also  declaims 
during  the  action  and  occasionally  engages  in  dialogue  with 
the  principal  characters.  Lack  of  restraint  in  the  expression 
of  grief  and  anger,  far  fetched  figures  of  speech,  sententious- 
ness,  the  stoicism  of  the  prisoners  in  the  face  of  death,  and 
the  atrocious  murders  committed  on  the  stage  all  indicate  the 
influence  of  Seneca. 

So  far  as  we  know,  only  one  other  tragedy  definitely  based 
upon  classical  models,  the  Elisa  Dido  of  Virues,  was  written  in 
Spain  during  the  sixteenth  century,  and  this  was  not  published 
until  1609.  The  experiment  made  by  Bermudez  is  of  his- 


SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

torical  interest,  but  apparently  contributed  little  to  the  de- 
velopment of  the  drama.  Spanish  playwrights  refused  to 
obey  blindly  classical  precepts,  and  under  the  leadership  of 
Juan  de  la  Cueva,  created  a  new  type  of  play,  which  re- 
tained certain  features  of  classical  tragedy,  but  adapted  them 
to  meet  the  requirements  of  a  Spanish  audience. 

Juan  de  la  Cueva  is  the  outstanding  figure  in  the  period  of 
transition  which  preceded  the  appearance  of  Lope  de  Vega. 
Born  at  Seville  about  the  year  1550,  he  essayed  nearly  all  the 
poetic  genres,  but  it  was  not  until  after  his  return  to  his  native 
city  in  1577,  after  a  residence  of  over  two  years  in  Mexico, 
that  he  devoted  himself  to  writing  for  the  stage.  His  four- 
teen comedies  and  tragedies,  published  in  1583  and  again  in 
1588,  were  performed  in  various  playhouses  of  Seville  from 
1579  to  1581,  and  he  also  prepared  for  publication  a  second 
series  of  plays,  of  which  nothing  is  known,  save  that  in  1595 
he  authorized  two  persons  to  secure  a  license  to  print  this 
volume.  Perhaps  he  realized  that  his  plays  could  not  compete 
successfully  with  the  new  type  of  comedia  created  by  Lope  de 
Vega.  However,  he  seems  to  have  cherished  no  resentment 
against  his  illustrious  rival.  It  is  true  that  he  does  not  men- 
tion Lope  in  his  treatise  on  poetics,  entitled  Exemplar  poetico, 
completed  in  1606,  but  he  was  generous  enough  to  ardently 
defend  the  practice  of  the  dramatists  of  the  early  years  of 
the  seventeenth  century. 

In  this  work,  he  attempts  no  defense  of  his  own  plays, 
written  nearly  thirty  years  before,  but  quite  properly  claims  a 
share  in  the  triumphs  of  his  successors.  While  we  must  re- 
gard as  unfounded  his  statement  that  he  was  the  first  to  bring 
kings  and  gods  on  the  comic  stage,  that  the  name  Jornada 
was  his  own  invention  and  that  he  had  reduced  the  conven- 
tional five  acts  to  four,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  he  estab- 
lished the  vogue  of  the  four-act  play  between  1580  and  1585, 
and  that  he  gave  the  weight  of  his  authority  to  the  use  of  a 
variety  of  meters  in  a  single  play. 

So  little  is  known  concerning  the  immediate  predecessors  of 


TRAGEDY  AND  LATER  COMEDY 

Juan  de  la  Cueva  on  the  Sevillan  stage  that  it  is  impossible 
to  determine  whether  these  innovations  are  due  to  him  alone. 
In  his  Exemplar  poetico,  he  mentions  Guevara,  Gutierre  de 
Cetina,  Co9ar,  Fuentes,  Ortiz,  Mexia  and  Mai  Lara  as  dra- 
matic poets  who  had  followed  the  older  traditions  of  the  stage 
at  Seville.  With  respect  to  their  dramatic  work,  we  know 
practically  nothing,  and  Cueva  gives  us  specific  information 
only  concerning  Juan  de  Mai  Lara,  who,  are  told,  composed  a 
thousand  tragedies  in  which  he  altered  ancient  practice  to 
conform  with  modern  requirements.  From  other  sources  we 
learn  that  while  still  a  student  at  Salamanca  Mai  Lara  wrote, 
first  in  Latin,  and  later  in  Castilian,  a  comedy  entitled  Locusta, 
performed  in  1548,  and  that  he  was  also  the  author  of  a  tra- 
gedy entitled  Absalon,  and  of  an  allegorical  comedy  performed 
at  Utrera  in  1561.  These,  apparently,  were  school  plays,  and 
seem  to  have  little  relationship  with  the  dramatic  compositions 
of  Juan  de  la  Cueva.  It  is  significant  of  the  interest  taken  in 
the  drama  that  when  Cueva  began  to  write,  there  were  three 
corrales  at  Seville,  the  Corral  de  Don  Juan,  the  Corral  de  las 
Atarazanas  and  La  Huerta  de  Dona  Elvira,  and  in  these  play- 
houses, the  comedies  and  tragedies  of  Cueva  were  performed 
by  the  well-known  actors  Alonso  Rodriguez,  Alonso  de  Capilla, 
Pedro  de  Saldana  and  Alonso  de  Cisneros. 

Of  the  fourteen  plays,  three  deal  with  epic  material  of  Spain. 
The  Comedia  de  la  muerte  del  rey  don  Sancho  y  reto  de 
Zamora  presents  one  of  the  most  celebrated  incidents  related 
in  the  chronicles  and  ballads.  This  story  is  a  part  of  the 
Cid  legend,  and  while  the  Cid  himself  plays  a  very  secondary 
role,  his  spirit  permeates  the  whole  composition.  The  play 
consists  of  a  series  of  scenes  taken  from  the  chronicles;  the 
siege  of  Zamora  by  King  Sancho  and  his  death  at  the  hands  of 
the  traitor  Vellido  Dolfos,  who  escapes  to  the  city;  the  chal- 
lenge of  Diego  Ordonez  to  the  defenders  of  Zamora;  the 
acceptance  of  the  challenge  by  the  aged  Arias  Gonzalo;  the 
death  of  his  three  sons  in  single  combat;  the  death-struggle 
between  Arias  Gonzalo  and  Diego  Ordonez  and  the  final  award, 


j6o    SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

and  the  dramatist  limits  himself  to  arranging  his  material  and 
introducing  dialogue.  These  characters  of  heroic  mould  win 
our  interest  and  sympathy,  and  we  can  imagine  the  delight  of 
an  audience  in  seeing  on  the  stage  a  story  with  which  they  were 
familiar  and  in  hearing  ballads  recited  which  they  had  known 
from  childhood,  as  for  example,  the  famous  challenge  of  Don 
Diego  to  the  defenders  of  Zamora. 

Even  better  known  was  the  story  treated  in  the  Tragedia  de 
los  siete  infantes  de  Lara,  derived  from  La  estoria  del  noble 
cauallero  el  conde  Fernan  Gonzalez  con  la  muerte  de  los  siete 
infantes  de  Lara}-  Cueva  failed  to  reproduce  the  sombre 
beauty  of  the  legend,  and  its  violation  of  the  unities  of  time, 
place  and  action,  is  glaring.  It  is  probable  that  Cervantes  had 
this  in  mind  when  he  spoke  in  Pedro  de  Urdemalas  of  a  play 
in  which  twenty-odd  years  elapsed  between  the  first  and 
second  act.2  Instead  of  concentrating  the  interest  upon  the 
vengeance  taken  by  Mudarra  for  the  death  of  the  seven  in- 
fantes, three  fourths  of  the  play  is  occupied  with  the  exposi- 
tion. The  story  was  a  favorite  one  with  later  dramatists, 
and  in  the  hands  of  the  Duque  de  Rivas  furnished  material 
for  the  first  decisive  victory  won  by  Romantic  poetry  in  the 
third  decade  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

The  third  of  the  chronicle  plays  is  the  Comedia  de  la  libertad 
de  Espaila  por  Bernardo  del  Carpio,  which  follows  closely  the 
account  given  in  the  Cronica  general.  The  figure  of  Bernardo 
del  Carpio,  the  national  champion,  who  was  credited  with  hav- 
ing turned  back  the  invading  French  knights  at  the  battle  of 
Roncevaux,  has  ever  been  popular  in  Spain,  and  his  exploits 
were  sung  in  ballads  and  related  in  many  a  long-drawn-out 
epic  poem.  First  brought  on  the  stage  by  Juan  de  la  Cueva, 
he  appears  again  in  the  Casa  de  los  celos  y  selvas  de  Ardenia 
of  Cervantes,  and  in  two  plays  of  Lope  de  Vega,  Las  ntocedades 
de  Bernardo  and  El  ca\samiento  en  la  muerte. 

1 R.  Menendez  Pidal,  La  leyenda  de  los  Infantes  de  Lara,  Madrid, 
1896,  p.  125. 
2  Menendez  Pidal,  op.  cit.,  p.  122. 


TRAGEDY  AND  LATER  COMEDY 

These  three  plays  constitute  a  real  innovation  in  the  history 
of  the  Spanish  drama.  Juan  de  la  Cueva  was  the  first  dra- 
matist to  make  use  of  the  legendary  lore  of  Spain,  to  bring 
Spanish  heroes  on  the  stage,  and  to  avail  himself  to  any  con- 
siderable extent  of  the  rich  treasure  offered  by  the  ballads. 
In  his  use  of  historical  material,  Juan  de  la  Cueva  is  a  true 
precursor  of  Lope  de  Vega. 

His  chief  fault  was  the  failure  to  distinguish  clearly  between 
the  nature  of  epic  and  dramatic  poetry.  Some  observance  of 
the  unities  would  have  forced  him  to  knit  his  scenes  more 
closely  together  and  to  limit  the  time  of  the  action,  but  respect 
for  the  unities  did  not  enter  into  his  conception  of  the  drama. 
Many  of  the  scenes  have  dramatic  interest,  but  in  most  cases 
he  failed  to  realize  their  relationship  to  each  other,  or  to  the 
play  as  a  whole.  His  characters  are  over-fond  of  declamation 
and  have  scarcely  a  human  quality.  The  dialogue  is  forced 
and  unnatural,  and  never  creates  the  illusion  of  ordinary  con- 
versation. The  metrical  forms  most  frequently  employed  by 
him,  namely,  verso  suelto  of  seven  and  eleven  syllables,  octava 
rima  and  redondttlas,  give  to  the  plays  an  epic  or  lyrical, 
rather  than  dramatic,  quality. 

It  is  difficult  to  determine  what  distinction  the  poet  made 
between  the  terms  tragedy  and  comedy.  The  Comedia  del  rey 
don  Sancho  and  Comedia  de  la  libertad  de  Espana  may  be 
called  comedies  because  of  their  happy  ending,  that  is  to  say, 
the  vindication  of  the  defenders  of  Zamora  and  the  final 
triumph  of  Bernardo,  but  applying  the  same  criterion,  the 
Tragedia  de  los  infantes  de  Lara_  is  also  a  comedy,  since  it 
ends  with  the  victory  of  Mudarra. 

Cueva  also  wrote  three  plays  dealing  with  early  Greek  and 
Roman  history.  The  first  of  these  is  the  Tragedia  de  la  muerte 
de  Ay  ax  Telamon  sobre  las  armas  de  A  guiles,  which  describes 
in  disconnected  scenes  the  departure  of  Aeneas  from  Troy,  and 
the  contest  between  Ajax  and  Ulysses  for  the  arms  of  Achilles, 
as  narrated  in  the  thirteenth  book  of  the  Metamorphoses. 
The  Tragedia  de  la  muerte  de  Virginia  y  Appio  Claudio, 


SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

based  upon  the  story  familiar  to  us  in  the  third  book  of  Livy, 
has  far  more  dramatic  interest.  The  scenes  are  arranged  so 
as  to  form  a  real  plot,  and  the  denouement,  which  presents  the 
heroism  of  Appius  to  save  his  daughter's  honour,  is  effective. 
The  Comedia  de  la  libertad  de  Roma  por  Mucio  Cevola  lacks 
dramatic  unity.  The  play  was  written  merely  as  a  setting 
for  the  scene  in  which  Scsevola  proves  to  Porsenna  the  sort  of 
courage  possessed  by  the  defenders  of  Rome,  whom  he  pro- 
posed to  enslave.  In  his  use  of  classical  historical  material, 
Cueva  anticipated  Cervantes  and  many  a  dramatist  of  the  fol- 
lowing century. 

His  inability  to  realize  the  difference  between  a  series  of 
dramatic  incidents  and  a  plot  with  dramatic  unity  is  well 
illustrated  by  the  Comedia  del  saco  de  Roma,  which  offers  the 
novelty  of  dealing  with  modern  history.  The  action  extends 
from  the  sack  of  Rome  by  the  Duke  of  Bourbon  in  May,  1527, 
until  the  arrival  of  the  Emperor  for  his  coronation  at  Bologna 
in  February,  1530.  Since  Bourbon  meets  his  well-deserved 
death  in  the  second  act  and  the  emperor  does  not  appear  until 
the  close  of  the  fourth,  the  play  has  no  real  protagonist.  The 
author's  purpose  seems  to  have  been  to  attempt  to  arouse  a 
feeling  of  righteous  horror  at  this  unholy  undertaking  by  the 
accumulation  of  episodes  designed  to  show  the  cruelty  of  the 
Spanish  and  German  troops. 

The  Comedia  del  principe  tirano  presents  the  Prince  Lici- 
maco,  whose  jealous  hatred  of  his  sister,  Eliodora,  is  stirred 
to  action  by  the  Fury  Alecto  and  by  the  suggestions  of  his 
counsellor,  Trasildoro.  He  determines  to  kill  her,  and  this 
brotherly  act  is  performed  in  the  garden  of  the  palace,  while 
the  Fates  spin  and  cut  the  thread  of  her  life.  Trasildoro  is 
also  put  to  death  in  order  that  the  secret  of  this  crime  may  be 
guarded.  The  Prince  and  his  father  are  pursued  by  gruesome 
visions  at  night,  and  finally  the  ghosts  of  Eliodora  and  Trasil- 
doro reveal  to  the  King  the  bloody  deed  of  the  Prince.  The 
latter  is  condemned  to  death,  effects  his  escape  and  is  finally 
pardoned  by  the  King.  The  second  part,  entitled  Tragedia 


TRAGEDY  AND  LATER  COMEDY 

del  principe  tirano,  is  a  perfect  riot  of  bloodshed  and  crime. 
The  estimable  young  Prince  develops  into  a  monster  incarnate 
after  his  father's  abdication.  He  burns  the  books  of  the  Law, 
demands  of  reputable  citizens  the  surrender  of  their  daughters, 
executes  any  one  who  ventures  to  oppose  him,  buries  two  of 
his  adversaries  alive,  and  finally  meets  his  death  at  the  hands 
of  two  women  whom  he  had  sought  to  injure.  There  is  noth- 
ing to  justify  this  tissue  of  crimes,  except  the  old  moral  lesson 
that  the  way  of  the  transgressor  is  hard.  All  of  the  imita- 
tors of  Seneca  revelled  in  excesses  of  this  kind,  but  this  play 
passes  the  bounds  of  propriety  and  credibility. 

The  Comedia  del  tutor  is  an  insignificant  comedy  of  intrigue, 
dealing  with  the  rivalry  of  two  students,  and  the  guardian  of 
one  of  them,  for  the  love  of  a  young  woman  of  Seville. 
Through  the  aid  of  his  servant,  Otavio  plays  a  trick  upon  his 
rivals,  and  completely  discredits  them.  Otavio  is  another  Ca- 
listo;  Licio  plays  the  part  of  a  resourceful  Sempronio,  and 
Astropo,  an  engaging  braggart,  also  recalls  the  Celestina.  The 
plot  is  buried  beneath  diction  and1  rhetoric,  and  the  verse 
measures  employed  are  too  ponderous  for  a  farce. 

The  Comedia  de  la  constancia  de  Arcelina  is  an  extravagant 
play,  made  up  of  characters  and  incidents  that  never  existed 
except  in  a  distorted  imagination.  One  ridiculous  situations 
follows  another  until  an  absurd  denouement  is  reached,  which 
violates  every  law  of  probability.  The  plot  of  the  Cotnedid 
del  viejo  enamorado  has  certain  dramatic  possibilities,  but 
is  spoiled  by  extravagant  incidents.  The  intrigue  by  which  old 
Liboso  seeks  to  win  the  love  of  Olimpia  is  good  material  for 
a  farce,  but  the  later  scenes,  with  the  intervention  of  a  magi- 
cian and  the  Furies,  are  preposterous. 

Far  superior  to  these  is  the  Comedia  del  degollado,  which 
has  interesting  points  of  similarity  with  Whetstone's  History? 
of  Promos  and  Cassandra,  and  with  Measure  for  Measure. 
Its  source  seems  to  be  the  well-known  fifth  novella  of  the 
eighth  Decade  of  Giraldi  Cinthio's  Gli  Hecatommithi,  or  the 
latter's  dramatization  of  the  same  story  entitled  Epitia,  but 


SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

the  romantic  incidents  of  the  capture  of  Arnaldo  and  Celia 
create  an  original  setting.  Here  Arnaldo's  offense  is  a  murder 
which  is  morally  justifiable.  In  Giraldi's  story,  in  Epitia  and 
in  Promos  and  Cassandra,  the  young  girl  actually  sacrifices 
her  honour  to  save  her  brother's  life.  This  sacrifice  is  avoided 
in  Measure  for  Measure  by  the  substitution  of  Mariana  for 
Isabella,  and  in  El  degollado,  by  the  rather  tardy  repentance  of 
the  Prince.  Arnaldo  is  more  courageous  than  his  counterpart 
in  the  other  versions,  for  he  refuses  to  live  at  the  cost  of 
Celia's  virtue.  In  Giraldi's  story,  Epitia  and  Promos  and 
Cassandra,  the  heroine  not  only  marries  her  violator,  but  saves 
him  from  the  death  he  so  richly  merited.  Judged  from 
•modern  standards,  a  satisfactory  solution  was  found  only  by 
Shakespeare  and  by  Cueva. 

The  Comedia  del  infamador  is  a  comedia  de  capa  y  espada, 
with  the  addition  of  extravagant  mythological  and  superna- 
tural elements.  While  it  is  unlikely  that  it  served  as  a  model 
for  the  composition  of  Tirso  de  Molina's  El  burlador  de 
Sevttla,  as  was  claimed  by  Schack,  its  theme  has  a  remote  con- 
nection with  the  Don  Juan  legend.  The  influence  of  the 
Celestina  is  also  apparent.  There  is  a  certain  amount  of  in- 
terest in  the  early  part  which  deals  with  the  efforts  of  the 
dissolute  Leucino  to  secure  possession  of  Eliodora,  and  the 
latter's  defense  of  her  honour.  The  conclusion,  however, 
brought  about  by  Diana's  assertion  of  the  girl's  innocence,  and 
ner  command  that  Leucino  be  buried  alive,  after  the  river 
Guadalquivir  refuses  to  receive  his  body,  is  ridiculous.  As  in 
the  case  of  the  Comedia  del  vie  jo  enamorado,  a  plot  with  dra- 
matic possibilities  was  spoiled  by  the  introduction  of  absurd 
incidents. 

A  desire  to  protect  Spanish  tragedy  from  the  restrictions 
imposed  by  classical  traditions  is  apparent  in  the  tragedy  of 
Los  amantes  by  the  Valencian  poet,  Andres  Rey  de  Artieda, 
published  at  Saragossa  in  1581.  Born  at  Valencia  in  1549,  he 
took  his  baccalaureate  at  the  University  of  that  city  in  1563, 
and  studied  law  at  Lerida  and  Tolosa.  A  soldier  by  profes- 


TRAGEDY  AND  LATER  COMEDY 

sion,  who  spent  many  years  in  the  armies  of  Philip  II  and 
Philip  III,  and  a  comrade  in  arms  of  Cervantes  at  the  battle  of 
Lepanto,  where  he  received  three  wounds,  he  devoted  his 
leisure  time  to  the  writing  of  verse.  When  he  was  only  fifteen 
years  old,  he  was  mentioned  as  a  poet  by  Caspar  Gil  Polo,  and 
in  his  later  years,  he  was  a  prominent  member  of  the  Academia 
de  los  Nocturnes.  In  addition  to  Los  amantes,  Valencian 
bibliographers  have  attributed  to  him  two  plays,  El  principe 
vicioso  and  Amadis  de  Gaula,  of  which  nothing  is  known,  and 
another  play,  Los  encantos  de  Merlin,  ascribed  to  him  by 
Rojas  Villandrando,  is  not  extant. 

In  an  epistle  which  precedes  Los  amantes,  he  contrasts  the 
magnificence  of  the  theatres  of  ancient  times  with  the  meager 
stage  setting  of  his  own  day.  "  Now  there  is  no  trace  ",  he 
says,  "  of  the  choral  songs,  although  I  saw  them  in  print,  not 
many  months  ago,  in  two  Nises",  in  which  he  refers  to  the 
tragedies  of  Jeronimo  Bermudez,  published  in  1577.  But 
while  aware  of  the  beauties  of  the  classical  drama,  he  does  not 
resign  himself  to  follow  blindly  its  traditions.  He  says  that, 
judged  by  ancient  standards,  his  play  may  be  lacking  in  good 
taste,  but  this  is  a  fault  from  which  the  ancients  themselves 
could  not  always  escape.  He  believes  that  tragedy  has  a  right 
to  adapt  itself  to  modern  conditions.  While  I  do  not  be- 
lieve that  the  poet's  reference  to  the  tragedies  of  Bermudez, 
published  in  1577,  proves  that  the  dedicatory  epistle  of  his 
own  play  was  written  as  early  as  1578,  since  he  may  not  have 
seen  these  immediately  after  their  publication,  I  find  little  evi- 
dence of  acquaintance  with  the  plays  of  Juan  de  la  Cueva. 

The  subject  of  Los  amantes  is  the  well-known  legend  of  the 
lovers  of  Teruel  which  was  especially  familiar  to  a  Valencian 
audience.  About  the  year  1555,  Pedro  Albentosa,  a  native  of 
the  neighbouring  town  of  Teruel,  had  published  the  Historic* 
lastimosa  y  sentida  de  los  dos  tiernos  amantes  Afar  cilia  y 
Segura,  naturales  de  Teruel,  and  in  1562,  Diego  Ramirez 
Pagan  mentioned  Ysabella  and  Marcilla  among  the  celebrated 
lovers  in  a  composition  included  in  his  Floresta  de  varia  poesia. 


1 66          SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

Whatever  the  origin  of  this  story  may  have  been,  whether 
based  upon  popular  traditions,  or  upon  a  real  occurrence,  or 
upon  a  tale  of  the  Decameron,  this  pathetic  couple  had  become 
completely  identified  with  Teruel  when  Rey  de  Artieda  com- 
posed his  pay.  Thanks  to  Los  amantes,  and  the  pretentious 
epic  of  Juan  Yagiie  de  Salas,  and  to  the  plays  of  Montalban, 
Tirso  de  Molina  and  Hartzenbusch,  not  to  speak  of  countless 
less  well-known  versions,  Isabel  and  Marsilla  have  become 
paragons  of  frustrated  love  which  finds  an  issue  in  death. 

The  originality  of  Rey  de  Artieda  does  not  lie,  therefore,  in 
the  invention  of  a  plot  and  in  the  arrangement  of  dramatic 
situations,  but  in  his  choice  of  a  national  story  replete  with 
romantic  incidents.  His  play  is  a  tragedy,  but,  as  he  writes  in 
his  dedication,  it  does  not  deal  with  kings  and  princes.  He 
presents  "  only  a  gentleman  and  lady,  who  strive  to  win  Laura's 
laurel ".  This  reference  is  not  without  interest,  because  he 
shows  his  admiration  for  Petrarch  by  translating,  in  the  third 
scene  of  the  second  act,  the  well-known  sonnet  "  Cesare,  poi 
ch  '1  traditor  d'Egitto,"  which  was  also  translated  into 
Spanish  by  Hernando  de  Acuna.  The  earlier  Spanish  drama 
offers  us  no  serious  portrayal  of  love  with  its  fatal  conse- 
quences when  thwarted.  Here  is  represented  the  painful  con- 
flict between  duty  and  will  in  the  heart  of  Isabel,  and  the 
grief  of  the  lovers,  gradually  intensified  throughout  the  four 
acts.  In  the  comedias  of  Tirso  de  Molina  and  Perez  de  Mon- 
talban on  the  same  subject,  the  biographical  method  is  em- 
ployed, while  in  Los  amantes,  emphasis  is  laid  upon  the  crisis. 
Our  sympathy  is  awakened  by  the  moral  struggle  of  the  lovers 
against  fatality,  from  which  death  affords  the  only  possible 
escape. 

With  all  these  commendable  qualities,  the  play  cannot  be 
regarded  as  a  success.  Tragic  and  commonplace  elements  too 
often  stand  side  by  side,  and  the  scenes  and  characters  em- 
ployed to  give  comic  relief  frequently  mar  the  unity  of  impres- 
sion. The  style  is  sometimes  obscure,  and  the  author  unfor- 
tunately conceived  of  each  act  as  a  separate  dramatic  entity,  a 


TRAGEDY  AND  LATER  COMEDY  ^ 

fault  that  he  shared  with  nearly  all  of  his  contemporaries.  He 
was  conscious  that  Spain  needed  a  new  form  of  dramatic  art, 
and  his  attempt  to  meet  this  need  has  historical  interest,  but 
he  was  lacking  the  genius  to  definitely  indicate  the  path  that 
the  new  drama  must  take. 

The  consuming  love  of  Antony  for  Cleopatra,  a  favorite 
theme  for  dramatists  for  four  hundred  years,  is  portrayed  in 
Marco  Antonio  y  Cleopatra,  a  tragedy  by  the  Licentiate  Diego 
Lopez  de  Castro,  preserved  in  an  autograph  manuscript  of 
the  year  1582.  Nothing  is  known  of  the  author,  save  that  he 
was  a  native  of  Salamanca,  and  that  he  signed  the  autograph 
copy  of  the  play  at  Madrid.  The  first  two  acts,  which  pre- 
sent the  jealousy  of  Flaminio,  his  betrayal  of  Antony  and  the 
madness  of  Marcela,  appear  to  be  original,  but  the  last  two 
acts  are  derived  from  Plutarch,  and  offer  interesting  analogies 
with  Shakespeare's  Antony  and  Cleopatra.  The  suicide  of 
Heros  is  dramatically  and  tenderly  presented,  and  there  is 
almost  a  Shakespearian  note  in  Cleopatra's  anguish  when  she 
sees  the  lifeless  body  of  Antony.  "  Surely  he  is  dead  ",  she 
cries,  "  since  he  hides  from  me  his  face  ".  Cleopatra's  death 
follows  immediately  upon  this  scene,  and  the  play  ends  with 
Octavian's  tender  tribute  to  her  beauty  and  charm. 

This  play  has  a  human  interest  which  is  absent  from  the 
tragedies  of  Juan  de  la  Cueva.  Antony  is  not  a  pseudo- 
heroic  type,  but  merely  a  weak  man  dominated  by  an  unscru- 
pulous and  vacillating  woman,  and  the  sinister  influence  of 
Cleopatra  upon  his  life  is  intelligible  and  awakens  sympathy. 
We  may  criticise  the  constant  shifting  of  the  scene  from  Rome 
to  Alexandria,  and  we  may  find  that  the  first  two  acts  are  un- 
convincing and  unnecessary,  but  in  his  use  of  Plutarch's  story 
in  the  last  two  acts,  we  must  credit  Lopez  de  Castro  with  true 
dramatic  sense  and  a  lyrical  talent  of  a  high  order.  The  in- 
fluence of  Juan  de  la  Cueva  may  be  seen  in  the  division  of  the 
play  into  four  acts,  and  in  its  variety  of  metrical  forms. 

A  far  less  successful  attempt  to  imitate  the  methods  of 
Cueva  is  found  in  an  anonymous  romantic  comedy  entitled 


!68     SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

Los  cautivos,  preserved  in  an  undated  manuscript.  The  youth 
Ylioneo  has  abducted  his  sweetheart  Lucela,  and  the  maiden 
adopts  the  disguise  of  a  man  in  order  to  escape  detection. 
They  are  captured  by  highwaymen  and  sold  to  corsairs  who 
carry  them  off  to  Carthage.  Since  they  have  different  masters 
they  can  see  each  other  only  with  great  difficulty,  and  to  make 
matters  worse,  the  daughter  of  Lucela' s  master  falls  in  love 
with  her,  believing  her  to  be  a  man.  The  denouement  is 
reached  in  the  fourth  act.  Rosiana  persists  in  her  advances  to 
Lucela  and,  angered  by  the  latter's  indifference,  charges  her 
with  attempting  to  do  her  violence,  and  Lucela  is  consigned  to 
prison.  When  the  latter  appears  for  trial,  she  succeeds  in 
proving  her  innocence  by  revealing  her  identity,  the  lovers  are 
promised  their  release,  and  are  forgiven  by  their  fathers  who 
arrive  opportunely  on  the  scene. 

The  theme  of  a  young  girl  masquerading  as  a  man,  either 
from  choice  or  necessity,  was  a  favorite  one  in  sixteenth- 
century  fiction  and  plays,  and  the  ingenuity  of  novelists  and 
dramatists  was  taxed  to  contrive  new  complications  arising 
from  this  disguise.  In  a  number  of  cases  the  disguised  lady 
awakened  love  in  the  heart  of  another  woman,  as  in  the  love 
of  Phebe  for  Rosalind,  but  rarely  did  this  situation  have  tragic 
possibilities.  This  central  incident  in  Los  cautivos  bears  a 
marked  resemblance  to  a  scene  in  Calderon's  El  Jose  de  las 
mujeres,  and  another  analogue  is  found  in  Lope  de  Vega's 
Las  Batuecds  del  Duque  de  Alba.  Los  cautivos  contains  the 
elements  of  a  good  plot,  of  which  the  author  signally  failed 
to  avail  himself,  except  in  portions  of  the  fourth  act.  The 
style  is  mediocre,  even  when  due  allowance  is  made  for  the 
lamentably  incorrect  text  that  we  possess. 

The  Comedia  Salvaje  of  Joaquin  Romero  de  Cepeda,  pub- 
lished at  Seville  in  1582,  is  the  last  of  the  sixteenth-century 
dramatizations  of  the  Celestina.  The  author  was  a  native  of 
Badajoz,  and  wrote  the  Comedia  Metamorfosea,  as  well  as  a 
considerable  amount  of  lyrical  verse.  The  Comedia  Salvaje 
consists  of  four  short  acts,  written  in  double  redondillas,  and 


TRAGEDY  AND  LATER  COMEDY  jfo 

shows  no  acquaintance  with  the  plays  of  Juan  de  la  Cueva. 
The  first  two  acts,  which  deal  with  the  abduction  of  Lucrecia 
by  Anacreon  with  the  aid  of  the  bawd  Gabrina,  faithfully  re- 
produce familiar  incidents  of  the  Celestina  and  are  acceptable, 
but  the  attempt  to  show  the  consequences  of  wrong-doing  in 
the  last  two  acts  cannot  be  taken  seriously.  The  play  re- 
presents an  unsuccessful  effort  to  combine  the  comedy  of 
manners  with  the  pastoral  drama. 

In  discussing  the  predecessors  of  Lope  de  Vega  in  his  Loa 
de  la  comedia,  Rojas  Villandrando  mentions  Francisco  de  la 
Cueva  as  the  author  of  El  bello  Adonis.  This  play  has  been 
lost,  but  the  National  Library  of  Madrid  preserves  an  auto- 
graph manuscript  of  the  same  writer's  Tragedia  de  Narciso. 
Francisco  de  la  Cueva  y  Silva  was  born  at  Medina  del  Campo 
about  the  year  1550,  and  his  two  mythological  plays  were  pro- 
bably written  before  he  reached  middle  life.  "  He  wrote  plays 
that  were  performed  with  general  applause  ",  wrote  Lope  de 
Vega  in  the  Dorotea.  Later,  he  seems  to  have  given  up  play- 
writing  and  to  have  devoted  himself  to  the  practice  of  law. 
He  became  one  of  the  foremost  jurists  of  his  time,  and  the 
poets  speak  of  him  as  a  marvel  of  learning.  When  he  died  in 
1628,  Quevedo  wrote  a  sonnet  in  his  memory,  and  Lope  de 
Vega  bade  a  last  farewell  to  his  life-long  friend  in  the  Laurel 
de  Apolo. 

The  Tragedia  de  Narciso  treats  the  familiar  story  of  Echo" 
and  Narcissus  as  related  in  the  third  book  of  the  Metamor- 
phoses. It  is  divided  into  four  acts,  and  shows  a  rich  variety 
of  metrical  forms.  The  author  seems  to  have  possessed 
greater  lyrical  than  dramatic  talents,  but  the  play  is  characteri- 
zed by  good  taste,  and  the  description  of  the  death  of  Nar- 
cissus is  effective.  It  is  also  interesting  as  a  unique  example 
of  the  dramatic  use  of  mythological  material,  which  was 
destined  to  become  so  frequent  in  the  Court  productions  of 
the  seventeenth  century. 

The  anonymous  Gran  comedia  de  los  famosos  hechos  de 
Mudarra,  written  in  1583  or  1585,  and  preserved  in  a  manu- 


170 


SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 


script  at  the  National  Library  of  Madrid,  deals  with  the  legend 
of  the  Infantes  de  Lara,  already  brought  upon  the  stage  by 
Juan  de  la  Cueva.  The  author  avoids  the  multiplicity  of  in- 
cidents which  formed  the  basis  of  the  latter's  play,  and  re- 
stricts the  action  to  Mudarra's  vengeance.  Familiar  ballads 
were  skilfully  introduced  to  supplement  the  narrative  of  the 
chronicles,  and  truly  dramatic  situations  are  not  lacking.  The 
play  is  divided  into  three  acts,  and  the  redondilla  is  the  prevail- 
ing measure. 

In  a  conversation  introduced  into  the  forty-eighth  chapter 
of  the  first  Part  of  Don  Quixote,  Cervantes  discusses  with 
some  resentment  the  infatuation  of  theater-goers  for  nonsen- 
sical plays  that  violate  all  the  laws  of  art.  He  says  that 
perhaps  actors  and  managers  underestimate  the  literary  taste 
of  theatrical  audiences,  and  recalls  that  a  few  years  before 
"  there  were  three  tragedies  acted  in  Spain,  written  by  a  cele- 
brated poet  of  these  kingdoms,  which  were  such  that  they 
filled  with  admiration,  delight  and  amazement  all  who  heard 
them  ....  and  brought  in  more  money  to  the  actors,  these 
three  alone,  than  thirty  of  the  best  subsequently  produced  ". 
These  three  plays  were  La  Isabela,  La  Fills  and  La  Alej- 
andra,  and  they  found  favour  with  their  audiences,  in  spite 
of  the  fact  that  they  observed  the  principles  of  art. 

These  plays,  written  by  Lupercio  Leonardo  de  Argensola, 
were  not  included  in  the  edition  of  the  poet's  works  published 
at  Saragossa  in  1634,  and  were  known  only  by  the  reference 
in  Don  Quixote  until  the  year  1772  when  two  of  them,  Isabela 
and  Alejandro,  were  included  in  his  Parnaso  espanol  by  Lopez 
de  Sedano,  who  preserved  the  division  into  three  acts  found 
in  the  manuscript  which  he  used.  The  Conde  de  la  Vinaza 
followed  Lopez  de  Sedano's  text  in  his  edition  of  these  plays, 
and  also  printed  variants  from  a  manuscript  preserved  at  the 
National  Library  of  Madrid,  in  which  they  are  divided  into 
four  acts.  That  the  latter  was  the  original  form  is  proved  by 
the  prologue  to  Alexandra,  in  which  Tragedy  mentions  among 
the  innovations  of  modern  drama  the  reduction  of  the  five  acts 


TRAGEDY  AND  LATER  COMEDY 

of  the  classical  theatre  to  four.  They  were  probably  written 
between  1581  and  1585  for  presentation  at  Saragossa.  The 
prologue  to  Alejandro,  contains  a  specific  reference  to  that 
city,  and  Isabella  has  Saragossa  as  its  scene  of  action  and 
contains  numerous  appeals  to  local  patriotism. 

The  prologues  to  the  plays  furnish  conclusive  proof  that 
while  Argensola  was  not  a  strict  classicist  in  his  conception  of 
tragedy,  he  had  little  sympathy  with  the  Spanish  popular 
drama.  Isabela  is  introduced  by  the  allegorical  figure  of  Fame 
who,  after  apologizing  for  violating  the  laws  of  tragedy  by 
appearing  in  a  public  theatre,  congratulates  the  audience  upon 
its  good  judgment  in  prefering  pitiful  tragedies  with  a  moral 
lesson  to  lewd  nonsense  that  pleases  the  masses.  The  pro- 
logue to  Alejandro  is  recited  by  Tragedy  herself  who  explains 
her  ancient  and  honorable  lineage.  The  learned  Aristotle  had 
made  rules  for  her  adornment,  but  time  had  intervened,  de- 
priving her  of  one  of  her  five  acts,  and  of  the  choral  songs  as 
well.  She  expresses  her  surprise  at  seeing  the  spectators  so 
attentive,  and  bids  them  prepare  for  the  war,  deaths  and  tears 
that  are  to  follow. 

The  action  of  Isabela  is  laid  at  Saragossa,  in  the  reign  of 
Peter  I  of  Aragon.  The  conflict  between  Moors  and  Chris- 
tians forms  the  background,  and  the  plot  revolves  about  the 
passion  of  the  Moorish  king,  Alboacen,  for  the  Christian 
maiden,  Isabela.  It  is  a  romantic  tragedy,  conceived  after  the 
manner  of  the  Italian  imitations  of  Seneca  rather  than  based 
upon  a  close  study  of  the  Latin  dramatist.  The  unities  of 
place  and  time  are  observed,  but  the  unity  of  action  is  fla- 
grantly disregarded.  The  central  point  is  the  determination 
of  Isabela  to  die  with  her  lover  Muley,  a  convert  to  Chris- 
tianity, rather  than  yield  herself  to  the  enemy  of  her  people. 
The  generous  attempt  of  Isabela  to  sacrifice  herself  for  her 
lover  recalls  the  episode  of  Olindo  and  Sofronia  in  the  Gerusa- 
lemme  Liberata,  which  Argensola  may  possibly  have  known, 
and  also  the  *<rvr^  of  Nisus  and  Euryalus  in  the  ninth  book  of 
the  Aeneid,  a  few  lines  of  which  were  translated  by  the  poet 


172 


SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 


in  describing  the  death  of  Isabela.  The  latter  is  a  martyr  of 
the  type  that  has  made  Saragossa  famous,  and  the  inspiration 
of  the  play  is  almost  exclusively  national. 

The  tragedy  of  Alejandro,  has  two  well-defined  actions :  the 
desire  of  a  prince  to  avenge  his  father's  death,  and  the  insane 
jealousy  of  a  king  which  finds  satisfaction  in  the  death  of 
his  queen,  thus  combining  the  themes  of  Hamlet  and  Othello. 
The  latter  part  of  the  play,  including  the  jealousy  of  King 
Acoreo  and  his  bloody  revenge  upon  the  queen  and  an  innocent 
courtier,  is  based  upon  Lodovico  Dolce's  Marianna,  a  dra- 
matization of  the  world-famous  story  of  Herod  and  Mariamne, 
as  related  by  Josephus.  The  court  of  one  of  the  Egyp- 
tian Ptolemies,  which  the  author  chose  for  a  background,  was 
well  adapted  to  the  gruesome  incidents  here  presented.  After 
being  obliged  to  wash  her  hands  in  the  blood  of  the  man  she 
loves,  Alejandra  drinks  poison,  bites  off  her  tongue  in  her1 
agony  and  spits  it  at  the  king;  children  are  ruthlessly 
murdered;  Acoreo  is  assassinated  by  members  of  his  own 
escort,  who  offer  his  head  to  Orodante  and  are  executed  as 
traitors ;  Sila  stabs  Orodante  and  then  commits  suicide,  and  al- 
though the  ghastly  execution  of  Lupercio  is  mercifully  des- 
cribed by  a  messenger,  Argensola  even  surpasses  Dolce  in  the 
element  of  physical  horror. 

In  adapting  the  Italian  play,  Argensola  made  a  number  of 
important  changes.  Marianna  is  entirely  innocent  of  infidelity ; 
Alejandra  is  unfaithful,  at  least  in  thought.  The  cup-bearer, 
who  is  merely  an  instrument  in  the  conspiracy  in  Dolce's 
tragedy  becomes  a  prominent  character  in  Alejandra  as  claim- 
ant to  the  throne.  Marianna  ends  with  the  repentance  of 
Herod  for  the  execution  of  Soemo,  Marianna,  Alessandra 
and  his  two  sons.  In  Alejandra,  the  death  of  Acoreo  at  the 
hands  of  the  conspirators  furnishes  the  denouement.  The 
sub-plot,  including  the  love  of  Lupercio  and  Orodante  for 
Sila,  as  well  as  the  conspiracy  of  Ostilo  and  Remulo,  seems 
to  be  entirely  of  Argensola's  invention. 

It  is  easy  to  ridicule  the  horrors  of  this  play,  but  we  should 


TRAGEDY  AND  LATER  COMEDY 

not  forget  that  melodrama,  with  scenes  of  bloodshed,  was  a 
natural  inheritance  from  Seneca,  and  that  Alejandro,  should  not 
be  compared  with  the  plays  of  Lope  de  Vega  and  Tirso  de 
Molina,  but  with  The  Spanish  Tragedy,  with  Giraldi  Cinthio's 
Orbecche  and  with  the  tragedies  of  Robert  Gamier,  all  of 
which  represent  approximately  the  same  stage  of  dramatic 
development  as  the  plays  of  Argensola. 

In  the  prologue  to  his  Ocho  comedias  y  ocho  entremeses 
(1615),  Cervantes  chats  half  playfully  and  with  a  touch  of 
sadness  concerning  his  early  plays,  written  before  Lope  de 
Vega  directed  the  Spanish  drama  into  new  paths.  He  tells  us 
that  in  the  first  period  of  his  dramatic  activity,  he  composed 
from  twenty  to  thirty  plays,  of  which  he  mentions  specifically 
Los  tratos  de  Argel,  La  destruction  de  Numancia  and  La 
batalla  naval,  and  adds  whimsically  that  all  of  these  were  per- 
formed without  any  offering  of  cucumbers  or  other  sign  of 
disapproval  from  the  audience.  In  the  Ad  junta  al  Parnaso, 
published  the  preceding  year,  Cervantes  mentions  among  his 
early  plays  Los  tratos  de  Argel,  La  Numancia,  La  gran  Tur- 
quesca,  La  batalla  naval,  La  Jerusalan,  La  Amaranta  o  la  del 
Mayo,  El  bosque  amoroso,  La  unica  y  la  bizarra  Arsinda,1  "and 
many  others  which  I  have  forgotten  ",  and  expresses  his  pre- 
ference for  still  another,  entitled  La  confusa.  Of  these  early 
plays,  only  two  are  extant,  Los  tratos  (or  El  trato)  de  Argel 
and  La  Numancia,  which  were  first  published  in  1784,  and 
which,  on  the  basis  of  their  order  in  the  two  lists,  were  prob- 
ably the  first  dramatic  compositions  of  Cervantes.  With  re- 
spect to  La  confusa,  we  know,  thanks  to  the  discovery  of  Perez 
Pastor,  that  while  residing  at  Madrid  in  1585,  Cervantes 
contracted  with  a  theatrical  manager  to  write  two  plays  entitled 
La  confusa  and  El  trato  de  Constantino pla  y  muerte  de  Selin. 
We  do  not  know  whether  the  latter  was  ever  performed  or 
even  written,  since  Cervantes  did  not  include  this  title  in  either 
list. 

title  may  stand  for  two  plays. 


174 


SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 


"  Of  the  captivity  and  deeds  of  Miguel  de  Cervantes,  a 
separate  history  might  be  written  ",  says  Diego  de  Haedo  in 
his  Topografia  e  historia  general  de  Argel  (1612).  Even 
more  interesting  than  such  a  history,  had  it  been  written,  are 
the  three  novelas  and  the  two  plays,  Los  tratos  de  Argel  and 
Los  banos  de  Argel,  in  which  Cervantes  drew  largely  upon  his 
own  experiences  during  his  five  years  of  slavery.  With  the 
memories  of  his  own  hardships  fresh  in  his  mind,  he  attempted 
to  describe  in  Los  tratos  de  Argel  the  sufferings  of  the  Chris- 
tian captives  in  Algiers,  and  drew  a  picture  that  must  have 
been  painful  to  his  audience.  One  could  not  see  with  equan- 
imity the  courageous  efforts  to  escape  that  were  rewarded  by 
death ;  the  apostasy  of  men  of  weaker  stuff ;  the  ruthless  dis- 
regard of  Christian  womanhood,  and  the  martyrdom  of 
Christian  priests;  nor  could  one  witness  without  righteous 
anger  the  scene  of  the  slave-market,  where  members  of  the 
same  family  were  sold  to  the  highest  bidders  and  separated 
from  one  another,  condemned  to  a  living  death.  The  pur- 
pose of  Cervantes  was  to  prick  the  conscience  of  Philip  II, 
who  was  more  interested  in  extending  the  faith  in  Flanders 
than  in  relieving  the  sufferings  of  his  own  captive  subjects,  or 
in  ridding  the  Mediterranean  of  an  ever-present  nuisance;  and 
in  an  eloquent  outburst  in  the  first  act,  he  pleads  for  those  cap- 
tives, introducing  verses  which  he  had  directed  to  the  Secretary 
of  State,  Mateo  Vazquez,  in  1577. 

The  plot  and  characters  are  completely  overshadowed  by 
the  absorbing  interest  of  the  background.  The  trials  of  the 
lovers,  Aurelio  and  Silvia,  which  recur  in  El  amante  liberal, 
become  insignificant  when  compared  with  the  misery  of  their 
companions  in  slavery.  Cervantes  did  not  understand  at  that 
time  the  art  of  arranging  dramatic  scenes.  The  construction 
is  loose,  and,  as  a  play,  it  cannot  be  accorded  high  rank. 
However,  as  a  picture  of  some  of  his  own  experiences  during 
five  years,  as  a  cry  of  anguish  from  the  heart  of  a  great  man, 
and  as  an  appeal  to  remedy  conditions  that  were  a  disgrace  to 
Christendom,  it  deserves  our  respect  and  admiration.  Among 


TRA  GED  Y  AND  LA  TER  COM  ED  Y  1 75 

the  differences  noted  in  the  two  manuscripts  in  which  the  play 
has  been  preserved,  the  most  noteworthy  is  that  in  one  of 
these  it  is  divided  into  four  acts,  and  in  the  other,  into  five 
acts.  The  original  version  was  undoubtedly  in  four  acts. 

The  play  contains  a  reference  to  the  preparations  of  Philip 
II  for  the  conquest  of  Portugal  and  to  a  review  of  the  Spanish 
and  foreign  troops  at  Badajoz,  which  was  held  in  May,  1580. 
At  the  end  of  the  play,  mention  is  made  of  the  arrival  in 
Algiers  of  certain  Trinitarian  Fathers,  which  actually  took 
place  in  May  29th  of  the  same  year.  From  these  allusions, 
it  has  been  suggested  that  Los  tratos  de  Argel  was  written  at 
Algiers  in  the  summer  of  isSo.1  Does  it  follow  that  the  play 
was  written  during  his  captivity  merely  because  Cervantes 
placed  the  action  in  the  year  of  his  release,  and  gave  it  veri- 
similitude by  introducing  historical  references?  If  we  accept 
the  date  proposed,  we  must  explain  as  a  mere  coincidence  the 
similarity  of  Los  tratos  de  Argel  to  the  plays  of  Juan  de  la 
Cueva.  It  seems  more  reasonable  to  assign  the  composition 
of  this  and  the  other  plays  mentioned  in  the  prologue  to  his 
Ocho  comedias  to  the  period  between  1581  or  1582  and  1587, 
when  Cervantes  was  living  in  or  near  Madrid. 

La  Numancia  (or  La  destruction  de  Numancia),  in  four 
acts,  presents  the  heroic  defense  made  by  the  city  of  Numantia 
against  the  Romans,  culminating  in  its  capture  in  133  B.  C.  by 
Scipio  Aemilianus.  Cervantes  may  have  read  the  details  of 
this  famous  campaign  in  the  histories  of  Appian  or  Florus,  or 
in  the  continuation  of  Florian  de  Ocampo's  Cronica  by 
Arnbrosio  de  Morales.  He  showed  good  judgment  and 
secured  a  semblance  of  dramatic  unity  by  focusing  his  atten- 
tion upon  the  death-agony  of  the  city  that  dared  defy  the 
might  of  Rome. 

The  play  begins  with  the  arrival  of  Scipio  as  commander-in- 
chief,  his  refusal  to  discuss  peace  terms  with  the  Numantians, 
and  his  determination  to  starve  them  into  submission  and  to 

1El  teatro,  de  Cervantes,  estudio  critico  por  Armando  Cotarelo  y 
Valledor,  Madrid,  1915,  p.  192. 


SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

destroy  the  city.  The  gradual  exhaustion  of  the  defenders 
in  their  struggle  against  hunger  is  painfully  described,  and 
when  Scipio  finally  succeeds  in  entering  the  city,  he  finds  him- 
self deprived  of  the  chief  fruits  of  his  victory.  Only  heaps 
of  corpses  and  desolation  meet  his  eyes.  He  offers  wealth  and 
liberty  to  a  youth  who  has  mounted  a  tower  of  the  wall  with 
the  keys  of  the  city,  but  the  brave  Numantian  hurls  himself 
from  the  tower,  thus  depriving  Scipio  of  the  glory  of  taking  a 
captive  to  Rome  as  a  symbol  of  his  victory. 

Many  of  the  incidents,  such  as  the  love  of  Morandro  and 
Liria,  and  the  brave  attempt  of  Morandro  and  Leoncio  to 
secure  food  in  the  Roman  camp,  claim  our  interest  and 
sympathy,  but  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  play  has  epic  rather 
than  dramatic  qualities.  The  introduction  of  the  personified 
figures  of  War,  Famine,  Spain,  Disease,  the  River  Duero,  and 
others,  upon  which  Cervantes  later  prided  himself,  detracts 
from  the  impression  of  reality  which  he  sought  to  create.  It 
is  the  sombre  background  that  enlists  our  respect  and  admira- 
tion. To  Cervantes,  the  Numantians  were  the  forebears  of 
his  own  people  and  their  bravery  represented  the  defense  of 
Spain  against  a  foreign  invader.  The  play  is  the  best  literary 
expression  that  we  possess  of  Spanish  patriotism  at  the  close 
of  the  sixteenth  century. 

Like  Rey  de  Artieda,  a  veteran  of  Lepanto  and  of  many  a 
battle-field  in  Italy  and  Flanders,  and  like  him  a  Valencian, 
Cristobal  de  Virues  published  five  tragedies  at  Madrid  in  the 
year  1609.  We  have  little  evidence  for  determining  the  date 
of  their  composition,  but  the  fact  that  they  were  undoubtedly 
earlier  than  the  first  plays  of  Lope  de  Vega,  and  show  an  ac- 
quaintance with  the  theatre  of  Juan  de  la  Cueva,  allows  us  to 
conjecture  that  they  were  written  between  1580  and  1585. 
Four  of  these  plays  were  composed  in  three  acts,  an  innova- 
tion for  which  he  claimed  priority  in  the  prologue  to  his  La 
gran  Semiramis,  and  this  claim  was  supported  by  Lope  de 
Vega  in  his  Arte  nuevo  de  hacer  comedias  en  este  tiempo.1 

JThe  Comedia  Florisea  of  Avendano,  in  three  acts,  was  published  in 


TRAGEDY  AND  LATER  COMEDY 

In  the  tragedy  of  Elisa  Dido,  Virues  proposed  to  write  a 
play  "  entirely  after  the  manner  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans, 
with  care  and  study  ".  His  imitation  was  limited  to  the  most 
superficial  features:  the  division  into  five  acts,  the  use  of  the 
chorus,  the  exclusion  of  comic  elements,  and  characters  with 
a  fondness  for  declamation.  In  common  with  most  of  the 
Italian  dramatists  of  his  time,  and  Bermudez  as  well,  he 
adopted  hendecasyllabic  verso  suelto  as  the  basis  of  his  verse. 
While  the  main  outlines  of  this  play  on  Dido  are  derived 
from  the  historical  account  contained  in  Justin's  Historiae 
philippicae,  the  poetical  narrative  of  Vergil  also  contributed 
a  few  incidents. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  play,  Dido  is  aware  of  the  ambi- 
tious plans  of  larbas,  and  accepts  the  proposal  of  marriage 
made  by  his  emissary.  Her  reply  is  a  diplomatic  lie,  and 
the  interest  is  concentrated  upon  this  fallacious  answer  and 
her  suicide  in  the  presence  of  her  suitor.  larbas  himself  does 
not  appear  until  the  denouement  and  the  heroine's  role  oc- 
cupies only  about  one  hundred  lines.  Unfortunately,  the 
author  tried  to  make  the  plot  more  complex  by  introducing 
two  Carthaginian  chiefs,  Seleuco  and  Carquedonio  who  are 
enamoured  of  Dido,  and  who  in  turn  have  awakened  love  in 
the  hearts  of  Ismeria  and  Delbora.  He  attempted  to  heighten 
the  interest  by  the  introduction  of  irrelevant  episodes,  and  was 
totally  unable  to  focus  his  attention  upon  a  logical  sequence 
of  incidents. 

We  do  not  know  the  date  of  Elisa  Dido,  but  it  is  certain 
that  La  gran  Semiramis  is  the  first  of  his  three-act  plays. 
He  tells  us  in  his  preface  that  in  these  four  tragedies  he  at- 
tempted to  reconcile  classical  art  and  the  practice  of  contem- 
poraneous writers,  taking  from  each  its  best  elements,  and 
thus  satisfying  the  requirements  of  modern  art.  It  is  chari- 
table to  assume  that  this  preface  was  written  many  years  be- 

1551,  but  this  does  not  invalidate  the  claim  of  Virues.  The  Spanish 
plays  with  which  he  was  acquainted  were  written  in  four  acts,  and 
he  had  good  reason  to  believe  himself  the  inventor  of  a  new  form. 


SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

fore  its  publication  in  1609,  for  it  is  inconceivable  that  Virues 
could  have  expresed  himself  with  such  complacency  had 
he  been  acquainted  with  the  comedias  of  Lope  de  Vega,  or 
even  with  the  development  of  the  drama  in  his  native  city  of 
Valencia. 

"  In  all  my  plays  ",  wrote  Virues,  "  although  written  f  of 
my  own  amusement  and  in  my  youth,  heroic  and  grave  moral 
examples  are  shown,  as  befits  their  grave  and  heroic  style  ". 
He  shared  Giraldi  Cinthio's  conception  of  the  moral  function 
of  tragedy  and  followed  his  example  by  attempting  to  deter 
men  from  sin  by  showing  its  terrible  consequences.  He  did! 
not  concern  himself,  however,  with  the  petty  sins  that  are 
within  the  reach  of  any  man.  In  order  to  strengthen  the  force 
of  his  moral  lesson,  he  deals  with  crime  on  a  heroic  scale,  of 
such  extravagant  proportions  that  the  reader,  instead  of  trem- 
bling at  the  consequences  of  misdoing,  merely  smiles  incre- 
dulously. 

La  gran  Semiramis  presents  the  familiar  story  of  Semiramis, 
as  narrated  by  Justin.  The  action  covers  some  twenty-two 
years  and  describes  the  triumphant  progress  of  this  monster 
of  vice  who,  through  the  betrayal  of  her  husband,  becomes 
consort  of  Ninus,  King  of  Assyria,  whom,  in  due  time,  she 
poisons.  Her  assassination  by  her  son,  Ninias,  for  whom  she 
entertained  an  incestuous  love,  was  well  deserved,  but  her 
transformation  into  a  dove,  in  accordance  with  the  legend, 
was  a  better  fate  than  she  merited. 

La  cruel  Casandra  presents  another  woman  who  is  an  artist 
in  crime.  Her  fury  is  directed  against  a  prince  and  princess 
of  Leon,  and  also  against  a  lady  of  the  Court,  named  Ful- 
gencia.  In  order  to  encompass  their  death,  Casandra  has  no 
scruples  in  sacrificing  her  own  brother,  and  finally  dies  herself 
as  a  penalty  for  her  treachery.  The  experiences  of  Marcela  in 
La  infelice  Marcela  are  based  upon  the  story  of  Isabella  in  the 
thirteenth  canto  of  the  Orlando  Furioso.  Virues,  however, 
was  pitiless  with  his  characters,  and  refused  to  allow  them  to 
survive  the  last  act.  When  she  is  about  to  be  rewarded  for 


TRAGEDY  AND  LATER  COMEDY 

all  her  sufferings,  she  drinks  poison  by  mistake  and  dies  a  hor- 
rible death.  The  play  lacks  interest  because  the  heroine  is 
insignificant.1 

Delirium  reaches  its  limit  in  Atila  furioso,  the  protagonist 
of  which  is  not  the  infamous  Hun,  but  Flaminia,  a  woman 
dressed  as  a  page,  whose  identity  is  known  only  to  Atila.  The 
play  is  made  up  of  scenes  of  crime  and  bloodshed,  culminating 
in  the  attempt  of  Atila  to  murder  all  the  guests  at  a  wedding- 
banquet,  the  death  of  Flaminia  and  Atila's  suicide. 

In  these  four  tragedies,  each  act  presents  a  fairly  complete 
action,  a  method  of  procedure  to  which  he  approvingly  refers 
in  the  prologue  to  La  gran  Semiramis.  He  applied  to  his  plays 
the  same  principles  of  composition  that  he  later  used  in  his 
epic  poem,  El  Monserrate,  and  it  would  not  be  unfair  to  con- 
sider them  as  tragedies  in  three  cantos.  His  intense  imagina- 
tion and  his  ignorance  of  the  meaning  of  moderation,  either  in 
fancy  or  in  language,  led  to  a  complete  disregard  of  the  prin- 
ciple of  unity  of  action.  According  to  his  conception,  play- 
writing  consisted  in  the  accumulation  of  horrible  incidents. 

Two  plays  by  Gabriel  Lobo  Laso  de  la  Vega,  first  printed 
at  Alcala  in  1587,  might  have  been  written  by  Virues  in  a 
gentle  mood.  Composed  in  three  acts  with  a  bewildering 
variety  of  metrical  forms,  they  represent  a  completely  unsuc- 
cessful attempt  to  adapt  epic  material  with  lyrical  incidents, 
to  dramatic  form.  The  Tragedia  de  la  honra  de  Dido  restaurada 
proposes  to  correct  the  false  opinion  concerning  Dido,  derived 
from  Vergil,  and  following  Justin's  account,  describes  the 
murder  of  Sychaeus  by  Pygmalion,  Dido's  flight  across  the 
seas  and  arrival  at  Carthage,  and  her  suicide  to  escape  the 
unwelcome  attentions  of  the  neighboring  king,  larbas.  The 
author  apparently  conceived  of  drama  as  a  series  of  discon- 
nected lyrical  scenes.  The  same  faults  are  found,  to  an  even 
greater  dgree,  in  the  Tragedia  de  la  destruction  de  Constan- 
tinopla,  which  deals  with  the  capture  of  Constantinople  by 
Mohammed  II  in  1453. 

1Merimee,  L'Art  dramatique  a  Valencia,  p.  349. 


SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

A  reference  by  Lope  de  Vega  in  his  Laurel  de  Apolo  to 
Miguel  Sanchez  as  "  the  first  master  that  the  Muses  of  Terence 
have  had  in  Spain ",  has  been  interpreted  as  recognition  by 
Lope  that  Sanchez  had  preceded  him  in  writing  plays.1  On 
another  occasion,  in  his  Arte  nuevo  de  hacer  comedias  (1609), 
Lope  states  that  Sanchez  was  accustomed  to  employ  in  all  his 
comedias  the  device  of  speeches  with  double  meaning  in  order 
to  mislead  the  auditors  and  conceal  the  denouement  until  the 
very  end.  Inasmuch  as  Lope  de  Rueda  and  Virues  are  the 
only  other  Spanish  playwrights  mentioned  in  his  treatise,  and 
since  Lope  used  the  past  tense  in  speaking  of  Sanchez's  prac- 
tice, there  are  grounds  for  accepting  the  opinion  that  the  latter 
was  a  precursor  of  Lope. 

At  the  same  time,  the  evidence  in  this  question  is  conflicting. 
While  we  have  a  sonnet  from  his  pen,  dated  as  early  as  1587, 
his  only  two  extant  plays,  La  guard  a  cuidadosa  and  La  isla  bar- 
bara,  were  first  published,  so  far  as  we  know,  in  1615  and 
1638,  respectively.  A  manuscript  of  the  latter  play  contains 
licenses  for  performances,  dated  1611  and  1614.  Neither  of 
these  exhibits  the  peculiarity  of  "  deceiving  with  the  truth  ", 
and  we  must  assume  that  Lope  had  in  mind  other,  and  pro- 
bably, earlier  plays.  When  we  turn  to  other  references  to 
Miguel  Sanchez,  we  find  that  he  is  mentioned  after  Lope  de 
Vega  in  Rojas  Villandrando's  Loa  de  la  comedia,  in  Cervantes' 
prologue  to  his  Ocho  comedias,  and  in  Suarez  de  Figueroa's 
Plaza  universal.  Such  allusions  are  insufficient  foundations 
upon  which  to  base  the  chronological  relationship  of  a  poet  to 
his  contemporaries,  but  at  the  same  time,  Lope's  statement 
that  Sanchez  was  "  the  first  master  that  the  Muses  of  Terence 
had  ",  is  susceptible  of  several  interpretations.  It  may  be  a 
meaningless  compliment,  or  may  express  Lope's  opinion  of  the 
excellence  of  Sanchez  in  somewhat  elevated  comedy,  and  was 
not  intended  to  ascribe  to  him  the  position  of  a  pioneer.  At 
all  events,  whether  Sanchez  was  a  predecessor  or  contem- 

1This  was  first  suggested  by  Baist  in  the  Deutsche  Litteraturseitung, 
January,  1892. 


TRAGEDY  AND  LATER  COMEDY 

porary  of  Lope  de  Vega,  his  two  extant  plays  have  no  kinship 
with  the  dramatic  compositions  written  before  the  comedias  of 
Lope  de  Vega  began  to  appear  on  the  stage,  and  therefore 
are  not  included  in  this  study.  In  fact,  they  show  so  many 
characteristics  of  Lope's  manner,  that  if  we  accept  Sanchez 
as  a  precursor  of  Lope,  we  should  be  obliged  to  ascribe  to 
the  former  the  invention  of  the  comedia  nueva,  and  for  this, 
we  have  insufficient  evidence. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  Lope  de  Vega  received  an  important 
heritage  from  his  predecessors.  During  his  youth,  the  variety 
of  metrical  forms  adapted  to  given  situations  and  expressing 
different  emotions,  prevailed  in  both  comedy  and  tragedy,  and 
the  three-act  play,  had  already  made  its  appearance,  although 
at  the  beginning  of  his  career,  he  followed  the  older  division 
of  four  acts.  If  we  choose  to  go  into  details,  we  may  say 
that  he  was  anticipated  by  others  in  the  comedy  of  manners, 
the  comedy  of  intrigue,  the  comedia  de  cap®  y  espada,  in 
plays  on  ancient  and  modern  history,  in  the  use  of  Spanish 
legends  and  local  traditions,  in  pastoral  and  mythological  plays, 
and  in  religious  autos.  The  duplication  of  scenes  between  the 
galdn  and  dama  by  the  lackey  and  moza  is  found  in  certain 
plays  of  Torres  Naharro,  and  the  gracioso  may  be  regarded  as 
a  fusion  of  the  older  simple  and  criado.  Lope  de  Vega  per- 
fected the  technique,  characters  and  situations  transmitted  to 
him  by  his  elders,  but  he  did  far  more  than  that.  In  the 
words  of  Mr.  Fitzmaurice-Kelley,1  "  He  put  an  end  to  the 
simple  classification  of  plays  as  tragedies  and  farces:  he  con- 
ceived the  comedia  which  fused  the  most  diverse  elements  into 
one  spacious  whole,  and  by  this  invention  he  was  enabled  to 
represent  his  age,  to  enthrall  his  public,  and  to  develop  his 
own  amazing  powers.  He  wrought  to  such  purpose  that  the 
path  which  he  cut  out  for  himself,  and  by  himself,  became  the 
main  road.  He  pictured  contemporary  modes  and  humours 
with  unflagging  vivacity  and  unshrinking  truth.  He  opened 
up  the  treasures  of  historic  legend,  transforming  indistinct 

1  Lope  de  Vega  and  the  Spanish  Drama,  Glasgow,  1902. 


1 82       SPANISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

types  and  hard  automata  into  living  beings,  all  touched  with 
something  of  his  own  urbanity  ".  We  need  no  historical  back- 
ground in  order  to  find  delight  in  the  masterpieces  of  the 
comedia  nueva,  but  a  knowledge  of  the  beginnings  of  the 
Spanish  drama  aids  us  to  appreciate  properly  the  genius  of 
Lope  and  the  glories  which  he  and  his  successors  brought  to 
Spain  in  the  seventeenth  century. 


APPENDIX 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


The  best  account  of  the  religious  drama  before  Encina  is  given  by 
Adolfo  Federico,  Conde  de  Schack,  Historia  de  la  literatura  y  del  arte 
dramdtico  en  Espana,  vol.  i,  Madrid,  1885.  Also  useful  in  this  connection 
is  the  introduction  of  Eugen  Kohler  to  his  Sieben  spanische  dramatische 
Eklogen,  Dresden,  1911.  (Among  the  older  works  may  be  mentioned  the 
seventh  volume  of  Amador  de  los  Rios,  Historia  critica  de  la  literatura 
espanola,  Madrid,  1865,  and  Manuel  Canete,  Teatro  espanol  del  siglo 
XVI,  Madrid,  1885.  Emilio  Cotarelo  y  Mori  sketches  the  origins  of  the 
drama  in  his  study  of  Encina,  published  in  Estudios  de  historia  literaria 
de  Espana,  Madrid,  1901.  The  Origenes  del  teatro  Catalan,  Barcelona, 
1895,  of  Manuel  Mila  y  Fontanals,  and  Henri  Merimee's  L'Art  dramatique 
a  Valencia,  Toulouse,  1913,  offer  a  wealth  of  material  for  the  study 
of  the  origins  of  the  drama  in  Catalan  and  Valencian  territory.  A. 
Bonilla  y  San  Martin's  well-documented  monograph,  Las  Bacantes,  o 
del  origen  del  teatro  is  especially  important  for  the  earlier  period.  Among 
the  studies  treating  the  early  development  of  the  drama  in  various  cities 
may  be  mentioned  Jose  Sanchez- Arjona's  Noticias  referentes  a  los 
anales  del  teatro  en  Sevilla,  Sevilla,  1898,  and  the  same  author's  El  teatro 
en  Sevilla  en  los  sighs  XVI  y  XVII,  Madrid,  1887;  Narciso  Diaz  dc 
Escovar,  Anales  del  teatro  espanol  anteriores  al  ano  1550,  Madrid,  1910; 
Julio  Milego,  El  teatro  en  Toledo  durante  los  siglos  XVI  y  XVII, 
Valencia,  1909,  and  iRicardo  del  Arco,  Misterios,  autos  sacramentales  y 
otras  fiestas  en  la  Catedral  de  Huesca,  Revista  de  Archives,  vol.  xxiv,  1920. 

The  Auto  de  los  Reyes  Magos  may  be  read  conveniently  in  J.  D.  M.  Ford's 
Old  Spanish  Readings,  Ginn  and  Co.,  Boston,  1906,  the  text  of  which 
follows  the  edition  of  iR,  Menendez  Pidal,  published  in  the  Revista  de 
Archives,  vol.  iv,  1900.  In  the  notes  to  his  edition,  Professor  Ford  gives 
an  excellent  summary  of  the  previous  editions  and  of  the  many  critical 
articles  regarding  this  text.  I  agree  with  him  in  seeing  little  relation- 
ship between  the  Spanish  play  and  the  Orleans  liturgical  text.  Aurelio 
M.  Espinosa  makes  certain  emendations  of  the  text  of  Menendez  Pidal 
in  his  edition  published  in  the  Romanic  Review,  vol.  vi,  1915,  and  also 

183 


APPENDIX 

makes  important  suggestions  concerning  the  versification.  The  Auto  de 
los  Reyes  Magos  is  also  well  treated  by  Fitzmaurice-Kelly,  Historia 
de  la  literature,  espanola,  Madrid,  1921,  pp.  8-10,  and  the  bibliography 
there  given  is  very  useful.  For  Menendez  Pidal's  discussion  of  the  date, 
see  Cantor  de  mio  Cid,  vol.  i,  Madrid,  1908,  pp.  25ff  and  1440. 

Menendez  Pidal  proves,  in  my  opinion,  in  his  brilliant  essay  entitled 
La  primitiva  poesia  lirica  espanola,  included  in  his  Estudios  literarios, 
Madrid,  1920,  that  the  thirteen  couplets  with  the  refrain  Eya  velar 
found  in  Gonzalo  de  Berceo's  El  duelo  que  fizo  la  Virgen  Maria,  are 
derived  from  popular  sentinels'  songs,  and  have  nothing  to  do  with 
Easter  plays,  as  has  usually  been  accepted. 

'Gomez  Manrique's  Representation  del  nacimiento  de  nuestro  Senor, 
and  his  two  masquerades,  may  be  read  in  the  Cancionero  de  Gomes 
Manrique,  published  by  Paz  y  Melia,  Madrid,  1885,  and  in  R.  Foulche- 
Delbosc's  Cancionero  castellano  del  siglo  XV,  vol.  i,  Madrid,  1912,  which 
also  contains  the  Vita  Christi  of  Fr.  Iriigo  de  Mendoza.  Menendez  y 
Pelayo  studied  the  poetry  of  'Gomez  Manrique,  and  also  the  Vita  Christi, 
in  his  Antologia  de  poetas  liricos,  vol.  vi. 

Rodrigo  Cota's  Dialogo  entre  el  Amor  y  un  vie  jo  may  be  read  in  the 
Cancionero  de  Hernando  del  Castillo,  vol.  i,  Madrid,  1882,  in  Menendez 
y  Pelayo's  Antologia  de  poetas  liricos,  vol.  iv,  pp.  i-2O,  and  in  Foulche- 
Delbosc's  Cancionero  del  siglo  XV,  vol.  ii.  Another  version,  that  seems 
to  be  of  a  later  date,  was  published  by  Miola,  Miscellanea  di  filologia  e 
linguistica  in  memoria  di  Caix  e  Canello,  Florence,  1886.  It  is  discussed 
by  Menendez  y  Pelayo,  Antologia,  vol.  vi,  pp.  ccclxxvi-ccclxxxiv. 

CHAPTER  II 

The  plays  of  Juan  del  Encina  were  reprinted  in  the  Teatro  completo 
de  Juan  del  Encina,  Madrid,  1893,  with  an  introduction  by  Manuel  Canete 
and  Francisco  Asenjo  Barbieri.  His  plays,  with  the  exception  of  the 
Representation  del  Amor,  the  Egloga  de  las  grandes  lluvias  and  a  part 
of  the  Egloga  de  Platida  y  Vitoriano,  were  published  with  an  intro- 
duction by  Eugen  Kohler  under  the  title  Representations  de  Juan  del 
Encina,  Biblioteca  Romanica,  Strasbourg,  1914.  The  Egloga  interlocui oria 
was  published  by  Urban  Cronan  in  the  Revue  Hispanique,  vol.  xxxvi, 
1916,  and  on  this  play  (R.  E.  House  published  in  the  Romanic  Review. 
vol.  vii,  1916,  an  article  entitled  A  Study  of  Encina  and  the  Egloga 
interlo  cut  oria.  The  Auto  del  repelon  was  edited  with  a  long  critical 
study,  glossary  and  notes  by  Alfredo  Alvarez  de  la  Villa,  Paris,  n.  d. 

For  the  biography  of  Encina  and  a  critical  study  of  his  plays,  see 
Emilio  Cotarelo  y  Mori,  Estudios  de  historia  literaria,  Madrid,  1901,  pp. 
103-81 ;  Menendez  y  Pelayo,  Antologia  de  poetas  liricos,  vol.  vii,  pp.  i-c ; 
Eugen  Kohler,  Sieben  spanische  dramatische  Eklogen,  Dresden,  191 1 ; 


APPENDIX  !85 

E.  Diaz  Jimenez  y  Molleda,  Juan  del  Enema,  en  Leon,  Madrid,  1909; 
R.  Mitjana,  Estudios  sobre  algunos  musicos  espanoles,  Madrid,  1918  and 
J.  P.  W.  Crawford,  The  Spanish  Pastoral  Drama,  Philadelphia,  1915. 
Very  interesting  documents  regarding  Encina's  family  and  his  relations 
with  Lucas  Fernandez  were  published  by  Ricardo  Espinosa  Maeso  in  an 
article  entitled  Nuevos  datos  biogrdficos  de  Juan  del  Encina  in  the 
Boletin  de  la  Real  Academia  Espanola,  vol.  ix,  1921. 

CHAPTER  III 

The  plays  of  Lucas  Fernandez  were  reprinted  at  Madrid  in  1867  with  an 
introduction  by  Manuel  Canete,  which  is  also  included  in  the  same 
critic's  Teatro  espanol  del  siglo  XVI,  Madrid,  1885.  Gil  Vicente's  plays 
have  recently  been  edited  by  J.  Mendes  dos  Remedies,  3  vols.,  Coimbra, 
1907-1914.  For  critical  studies  on  Gil  Vicente,  see  the  bibliography  in 
Fitzmaurice-Kelly's  Historia  de  la  literatura  espanola,  Madrid,  1921,  and 
Aubrey  F.  G.  Bell,  Gil  Vicente,  Oxford  University  Press,  1921.  Torres 
Naharro's  Dialogo  del  nascimiento  is  included  in  Menendez  y  Pelayo's 
edition  of  the  Propalladia  de  Bartolome  de  Torres  Naharro,  vol.  ii, 
Madrid,  1900. 

The  Egloga  en  loor  de  la  natividad  by  Lopez  de  Yanguas  and  the 
Farsa  nuevamente  trobada  of  Fernando  Diaz  may  be  read  in  Kohler's 
Sieben  spanische  dramatische  Eklogen,  Dresden,  1911,  which  also  contains 
critical  studies  of  these  dramatists.  The  latter  play  is  also  included  in 
Urban  Cronan's  Teatro  espanol  del  sigl  XVI,  Madrid,  1913.  Extracts 
from  the  Christmas  play  of  Lopez  iRanjel  are  given  by  Pedro  Salva  y 
Mallen,  Catdlogo  de  la  biblioteca  de  Salva,  vol.  i,  Valencia,  1872,  no.  1298. 

The  plays  of  Sanchez  de  Badajoz  were  reprinted  by  Barrantes  in  two 
volumes  of  the  Libras  de  Antano,  Madrid,  1882-86,  and  the  first  volume 
was  republished  by  J.  Lopez  Prudencio  at  Badajoz  in  1910.  For  a  good 
critical  study  of  Sanchez  de  Badajoz,  see  J.  Lopez  Prudencio,  Diego 
Sanchez  de  Badajoz,  estudio  critico,  biogrdfico  y  bibliogranco,  Madrid, 


Extracts  from  Altamira's  Easter  play  are  given  in  Moratin's  Origenes 
del  teatro  espanol.  The  Farsa  del  mundo  y  moral  of  Lopez  de  Yanguas 
was  reprinted  by  Leo  Rouanet  in  his  Coleccion  de  autos,  farsas  y 
coloquios  del  siglo  XVI,  vol.  iv,  Madrid,  1901  and  by  Cronan,  Teatro 
espanol  del  siglo  XVI.  The  same  author's  Corpus  play  was  described 
by  Cotarelo  y  Mori,  Revista  de  Archives,  vol.  vii,  1902,  pp.  253-56.  The 
anonymous  Farsa  sacramental  was  reprinted  by  M.  Serrano  y  Sanz, 
Revista  de  Archives,  vol.  x,  1904. 

The  Tragedia  Josefina  of  Carvajal  was  reprinted  at  Madrid  in  1870 
from  an  edition  of  1546  by  Canete,  who  devotes  to  him  a  chapter  in  his 
Teatro  espanol  del  siglo  XVI.  A.  Morel-Fatio,  Romania,  vol.  xv,  1886, 


!86  APPENDIX 

pp.  462-68,  describes  an  edition  of  this  play  of  1540  and  corrects  a  num- 
ber of  statements  made  by  Canete. 

The  plays  of  Sebastian  de  Horozco  are  included  in  the  Cancionero 
de  Sebastian  de  Horozco,  Seville,  1874,  and  have  been  studied  in  Cotarelo 
y  Mori's  monograph  entitled  El  licenciado  Sebastian  de  Horozco  y  sus 
obras,  Madrid,  1916. 

The  Tragicomedia  del  Parayso  y  del  Infierno  was  reprinted  by  Cronan, 
Teatro  espanol  del  siglo  XVI.  Extracts  from  the  anonymous  Coplas 
de  la  Muerte  are  found  in  Salva's  Catdlogo,  already  mentioned,  vol.  i, 
no.  1195. 

CHAPTER  IV 

The  Comcdia  Trofea  of  Torres  Naharro  was  reprinted  by  Canete  and 
Menendez  y  Pelayo  in  the  Propalladia  de  Bartolome  de  Torres  Naharro, 
vol.  i,  Madrid,  1880,  and  is  discussed  by  Menendez  y  Pelayo  in  the  second 
volume  of  the  same,  Madrid,  1900.  On  the  mission  of  Tristao  da  Cunha, 
see  the  essay  of  Achille  Pellizzari  entitled  Strenne  di  Leone  Decimo,  pub- 
lished in  his  Portogallo  e  Italia  nel  secolo  XVI,  Naples,  1914. 

The  Egloga  Real  of  the  Bachiller  de  la  Pradilla  was  reprinted  and 
discussed  by  Kohler  in  his  Sieben  spanische  dramatische  Eklogen.  The 
Farsa  sobre  la  felice  nueva  de  la  concordia  e  pas  of  Hernan  Lopez  de 
Yanguas  was  also  studied  by  Kohler,  and  was  reprinted  by  Urban  Cronan, 
Teatro  espanol  del  siglo  XVI,  Madrid,  1913.  The  masquerade  of  Luis 
Milan  is  included  in  his  El  cortcsano,  reprinted  in  the  Coleccion  de  libros 
espaiioles  raros  y  curiosos,  vol.  vii,  Madrid,  1874.  It  is  well  discussed 
in  Henri  Merimee's  L'Art  dramatique  a  Valencia,  Toulouse,  1913. 

Gil  Vicente  may  be  real  conveniently  in  the  edition  of  J.  Mendes  dos 
Remedies,  3  vols.,  Coimbra,  1907-1914.  For  studies  of  his  dramatic 
activity,  see  the  bibliography  in  Fitzmaurice-Kelly's  Historia  de  la 
literatura  cspanola,  Madrid,  1921,  Aubrey  F.  G.  Bell,  Gil  Vicente,  Ox- 
ford University  Press,  1921,  and  Aubrey  F.  G.  Bell,  Portuguese  Liter- 
ature, Oxford,  1922. 

The  pastoral  plays  of  the  sixteenth  century  were  studied  by  J.  P.  W. 
Crawford,  The  Spanish  Pastoral  Drama,  Philadelphia,  1915,  and  most 
of  the  early  pastoral  plays  included  in  this  chapter  were  discussed  by 
Kohler,  Sieben  spanische  dramatische  Eklogen.  The  plays  of  Fernandez 
were  published  by  Manuel  Canete,  Farsas  y  eglogas  al  modo  y  estilo 
pastoril  y  castellano  fechas  por  Lucas  Fernandez,  Madrid,  1867.  The 
Egloga  de  Torino  was  republished  by  Menendez  y  Pelayo  in  vol.  ii  of  his 
Origenes  de  la  novela,  Madrid,  1907.  The  anonymous  Egloga  pastoril 
was  reprinted  by  Kohler  and  by  Cronan,  and  was  also  discussed  by 
Merimee,  L'Art  dramatique  a  Valencia.  Kohler  and  Cronan  both  in- 
cluded the  Egloga  nueva  of  Diego  Duran  in  their  important  collections 


APPENDIX 


187 


'of  sixteenth-century  plays,  and  the  same  is  true  of  the  Egloga  of  Juan 
de  Paris,  of  which  Cronani  reprinted  the  edition  of  1536  and  Kohler 
that  of  1551. 

Diego  de  Negueruela's  Farsa  Ardamisa  was  reprinted  by  Leo  Rouanet 
in  the  Bibliotheca  hispanica,  Madrid,  1900,  and  the  Farsa  Cornelia  was 
republished  by  Cristobal  Perez  Pastor  in  La  imprenta  en  Medina  del 
Campo,  Madrid,  1895,  The  Coplas  de  una  doncella  y  un  pastor  may 
be  read  in  Gallardo' s  reprint  of  an  edition  of  1604  in  the  Ensayo  de  una 
-biblioteca  de  libros  raros  y  curiosos,  vol.  i,  Madrid,  1863,  cols.  703-711. 
An  edition  of  about  1530  is  mentioned  in  the  Catdlogo  de  Salva,  vol. 
I,  p.  420. 

Sanchez  de  Badajoz's  Farsa  de  la  hechicera  is  reprinted  in  the  Re- 
copilacion  en  metro,  Libros  de  antano,  vol.  xi,  Madrid,  1882,  and  the 
play  is  discussed  in  Lopez  Prudencio's  critical  study  of  that  author  pub- 
lished at  Madrid  in  1915.  The  Comedia  Florisea  (1553)  of  Avendano 
was  republished  by  Adolfo  Bonilla  y  San  Martin  in  the  Revue  Hispanique, 
•vol.  xxvii,  1912  and  L.  Pfandl  described  the  edition  of  1551  in  the 
Zeitschrift  fur  rom.  Phil.,  vol.  xxxix,  1919.  Bonilla  y  San  Martin  re- 
published  the  Comedia  Tibalda,  together  with  the  additions  of  Hurtado 
de  Toledo  in  the  Bibliotheca  hispanica,  Madrid,  1903. 

The  Comedia  llamada  discordia  y  question  de  amor  was  reprinted 
from  an  edition  of  r6i/  by  Francisco  R.  de  Uhagon  in  the  Revista  de 
Archives,  vol.  vi,  1902.  Lope  de  Rueda's  Coloquio  llamado  prendas  de 
amor  may  be  read  in  the  second  volume  of  the  Spanish  Academy  edition 
'of  the  Obras  de  Lope  de  Rueda,  Madrid,  1908.  Gallardo  reprinted  the 
1588  edition  of  the  Comedia  Fenisa  in  El  Criticon,  Madrid,  1859,  and 
Bonilla  y  San  Martin  republished  an  edition  of  1625  in  the  Revue 
Hispanique,  vol.  xxvii,  1913.  The  Comedia  Metamorfosea  may  be  read 
in  Ochoa's  Tesoro  del  teatro  espaiiol,  vol.  i,  1838,  in  which  the  original 
division  in  four  acts  has  been  reduced  to  three.  On  this  and  other 
works  of  Romero  de  Cepeda,  see  Gallardo,  Ensayo,  vol.  iv,  cols.  254-59. 

CHAPTER  V 

The  plays  of  Torres  Naharro  were  reprinted  by  Canete  and  Menendez 
y  Pelayo  in  the  Propalladia,  Madrid,  1880-1900,  Libros  de  antano, 
vols.  5x-x,  and  Menendez  y  Pelayo's  important  introduction  is  included 
in  the  second  volume.  A  scholarly  review  of  this  edition  and  intro- 
duction by  A.  L.  Stiefel  appeared'  in  the  Literaturblatt  fiir  germanische 
und  romanische  Philologie,  vol.  xxiv,  1903,  pp.  119-126.  J.  E.  Gillet's 
article  entitled  Unc  Edition  inconnue  de  la  Propalladia  de  Bartolome  de 
Torres  Naharro,  published  in  the  Romanic  Review,  vol.  xi,  1920,  is  of 
considerable  bibliographical  interest.  Menendez  y  Pelayo  studied  the 
relationship  between  the  Comedia  Himenea  and  the  Celestina  in  his 


!88  APPENDIX 

Origenes  de  la  novela,  vol.  iii,  and  this  question  has  been  treated  more 
definitely  by  M.  Romera-Navarro  in  his  Estudio  de  la  Comedia  Himenea 
de  Torres  Naharro,  published  in  the  Romanic  Review,  vol.  xii,  1921. 
On  possible  sources  of  the  Comedia  Calamita,  see  J.  P.  W.  Crawford, 
A  Note  on  the  Comedia  Calamita  of  Torres  Naharro,  Modern  Language 
Notes,  vol.  xxxvi,  1921. 

The  Comedia  Tesorina  and  Comedia  Vidriana  of  Jaime  de  Giiete  were 
reprinted  by  Cronan  in  his  Teatro  espanol  del  siglo  XVI.  These  plays 
and  the  other  imitations  of  the  Celestina  and  Comedia  Himenea  men- 
tioned in  this  chapter  were  discussed  briefly  by  Menendez  y  Pelayo  in 
his  Origenes  de  la  novela,  vol.  iii.  The  Comedia  Radiana  was  edited 
by  R.  E.  House  in  Modern  Philology,  vol.  vii,  1910.  The  Comedia  Tidea 
of  Francisco  de  las  Natas  was  reprinted  by  Cronan  in  Teatro  espanol 
del  siglo  XVI  and  is  the  subject  of  an  article  by  M.  Romera-Navarro 
entitled  Observaciones  sobre  la  Comedia  Tidea,  published  in  Modern 
Philology,  vol.  xix,  1921.  The  Auto  de  Clorindo  was  reprinted  with  a 
brief  introduction  by  Bonilla  y  San  Martin  in  the  Revue  Hispanique, 
vol.  xxvii,  1912. 

Diego  de  Avila's  Egloga  interlocutoria  was  edited  by  Kohler  in 
Sieben  spanische  dramatische  Eklogen.  For  the  Farsa  de  Costansa, 
see  R.  Foulche-Delbosc,  Revue  Hispanique,  vol.  xxxvi,  1916,  pp.  489-508, 
and  Canete,  Teatro  espanol  del  siglo  XVI,  Madrid,  1885.  The  Farsa  del 
matrimonio  of  Diego  Sanchez  de  Badajoz  is  included  in  the  second 
volume  of  the  Recopilacion  en  metro,  published  at  Madrid  in  1886  by 
Barrantes.  The  play  was  also  reprinted  by  Gallardo,  Ensayo,  vol.  i, 
cols.  920-46  from  a  suelta  edition  of  1603,  which  he  erroneously  believed 
to  be  of  1530. 

For  Gil  Vicente,  see  bibliographical  note  to  Chapter  III.  The  Farsa 
Salamantina  was  edited  by  A.  Morel-Fatio  in  the  Bulletin  Hispanique, 
vol.  ii,  1900  with  an  important  introduction,  and  additional  facts  con- 
cerning Palau's  plays  are  found  in  the  preface  to  Leo  Rouanet's  edition 
of  Palau's  Farsa  llamada  custodia  del  hombre,  published  in  the  Archivo 
de  Investigaciones  historicas,  vol.  i.  R.  E.  House  pointed  out  certain 
resemblances  between  the  Farsa  Salamantina  and  the  Comedia  Tesorina 
in  an  article  entitled  The  Sources  of  Bartolome  Palau's  Farsa  Sala- 
mantina, published  in  the  Romanic  Review,  vol.  iv,  1913. 

The  anonymous  Farc.a  a  manera  de  tragedia  was  reprinted  by  Hugo 
A.  Rennert  in  the  Revue  Hispanique,  vol.  xxv,  1911,  and  in  a  revised 
edition  at  Valladolid  in  1914.  The  Comedia  Prodiga  was  republished 
by  M.  de  Alava  at  Seville,  1868,  and  was  discussed  by  Menendez  y 
Pelayo  in  the  third  volume  of  his  Origenes  de  la  novela.  The  oft- 
repeated  error  that  the  Comedia  Prodiga  is  adapted  from  a  play  by 
Cecchi  was  first  corrected  by  A.  L.  Stief el,  Literaturblatt  fur  germanische- 
und  romanische  Philologie,  vol.  xxiv,  1903,  p.  125. 


APPENDIX 

CHAPTER  VI 

The  best  edition  of  the  plays  of  Lope  de  'Rueda  is  that  of  E.  Cotarelo 
y  Mori,  2  vols.,  Madrid,  1908,  which  contains  an  important  introduction. 
The  monograph  of  N.  Alonso  Cortes,  entitled  Un  pleito  de  Lope  de 
Rueda,  Madrid- Valladolid,  1903,  contains  valuable  biographical  material. 
The  sources  of  Medora  and  Armelina  were  first  indicated  by  A.  L.  Stiefel 
in  an  article  entitled  Lope  de  Rueda  und  das  italienische  Lustspiel, 
Zeitschrift  fiir  romanische  Philologie,  vol.  xv,  1891. 

The  comedia  of  Sepulveda  was  printed  by  Cotarelo  y  Mori  in  the 
Revista  espanola  de  Literatura,  Historia  y  Arte,  vol.  i,  Madrid,  1901. 
Its  source  is  discussed  by  J.  P.  W.  Crawford  in  an  article  entitled  Notes 
on  the  Sixteenth  Century  '  Comedia  de  Sepulveda ',  published  in  the 
Romanic  Review,  vol.  xi,  1920. 

The  three  comedies  of  Timoneda,  and  the  volume  entitled  Turiana, 
were  reprinted  by  Menendez  y  Pelayo  in  the  Obras  completas  de  Juan 
de  Timoneda,  vol.  i,  Valencia,  1911.  Menendez  y  Pelayo's  death  pre- 
vented the  publication  of  the  second  volume,  with  the  promised  intro- 
duction. The  best  account  of  Timoneda  and  of  the  plays  included  in 
Turiana  is  found  in  Henri  Merimee's  L'Art  dramatique  a  Valencia, 
Toulouse,  1913.  The  sources  of  the  prologues  of  the  Comedia  de 
Amphitrion  and  Comedia  de  los  Menemnos,  and  the  indebtedness  of 
Timoneda  to  Lopez  de  Villalobos,  were  discussed  by  J.  P.  W.  Crawford 
in  the  Modern  Language  Review,  vol.  ix,  1914,  pp.  248-51.  The  source 
of  the  Farc.a  Trapacera  was  mentioned  in  the  indispensable  Geschichte 
des  neucren  Dramas  by  Creizenach,  who  at  that  time  knew  the  play 
only  from  the  brief  summary  given  by  Moratin. 

The  three  plays  of  Alonso  de  la  Vega  were  reprinted  by  Menendez 
y  Pelayo,  apparently  without  the  formality  of  proof  correction,  in  the 
publications  of  the  Gesellschaft  filr  romanische  Literatur,  Dresden,  1905. 
This  edition  contains  an  excellent  introduction  by  the  editor.  The  Farsa 
Rosiela  was  republished  by  Cronan  in  his  Teatro  espanol  del  siglo  XVI. 
Navarro's  Comedia  de  la  marquesa  de  Saluzia  was  reprinted  by  Miss 
Caroline  R.  Bourland  in  the  Revue  Hispanique,  vol.  ix,  1902,  and  is  also 
•discussed  in  the  same  writer's  monograph  Boccaccio  and  the  Decameron 
in  Castilian  and  Catalan  Literature,  Revue  Hispanique,  vol.  xii,  1905. 

For  the  Latin  comedies  of  Juan  Perez,  and  the  Ate  relegata  et  Minerva 
restituta,  see  the  interesting  article  by  A.  Morel-Fatio  in  the  Bulletin 
Hispanique,  vol.  v,  1903,  pp.  9-24.  For  my  knowledge  of  the  plays  of 
Lorenzo  Palmyreno  I  am  entirely  indebted  toH.  Merimee's  oft-mentioned 
L'Art  dramatique  a  Valencia. 

The  best  account  of  the  development  of  the  entremes  is  found  in 
E.  Cotarelo  y  Mori's  Coleccion  de  entremeses,  loos,  bailes,  jacaras  y 
mojigangas,  tomo  i,  vol.  i,  Madrid,  1911.  See  also  the  introduction  by 


190 


APPENDIX 


Leo  iRouanet,  Intermedes  espagnols  du  XVIIe  siecle,  Paris  1897  and  bjr 
G.  T.  Northup  to  his  edition  of  Ten  Spanish  Farces,  D.  C.  Heath  and 
Co.,  Boston,  1922.  For  the  beginnings  of  this  type,  see  an  article  by 
W.  Shaffer  Jack  entitled  Development  of  the  "  entremes "  before  Lope 
de  Rueda,  printed  in  the  Publications  of  the  Modern  Language  Associa- 
tion of  America,  vol.  xxxvii,  1922. 

The  pasos  of  Lope  de  Rueda,  Gil  Vicente,  Sanchez  de  Badajoz  and 
other  authors  are  included  in  editions  already  mentioned.  The  Entremes 
del  mundo  y  no  nadie  was  published  by  Foulche-Delbosc  in  the  Revue 
Hispanique,  vol.  vii,  1900.  On  this  theme,  see  J.  Bolte's  article  Niemand 
und  Jemand,  in  the  Jahrbuch  der  deutschen  Shakespeare-Gesellschaft, 
vol.  xxix,  1894,  ar>d  references  on  page  74.  The  Entremes  de  las 
esteras  may  be  read  in  Leo  Rouanet's  Coleccion  de  autos,  farsas,  y 
coloquios  del  siglo  XVI,  vol.  ii,  1901.  The  last  eight  entremeses  men- 
tioned may  be  read  in  Cotarelo's  Coleccion  de  entremeses,  etc.,  mentioned 
above.  The  source  of  the  Entremes  de  un  viejo  que  es  casado  con  una 
tnujer  moza  was  mentioned  by  G.  L.  Lincoln  in  the  introduction  to  his 
edition  published  in  the  Revue  Hispanique,  vol.  xxii,  1910. 

CHAPTER  VII 

Montemayor's  Christmas  play  is  found  in  Las  obras  de  George  de 
Montemayor,  published  at  Antwerp  in  1554  by  Juan  Steelsio.  There 
is  a  copy  of  this  book  in  the  library  of  the  Hispanic  Society  of  America, 
and  there  is  another  copy  in  the  library  of  Professor  H.  A.  Rennert. 
The  Dansa  del  santisimo  nacimiento  of  Suarez  de  Robles  was  described 
by  Moratin  in  Origenes  del  teatro  espanol.  El  pecador  of  Bartolome 
Aparicio  was  reprinted  in  Gallardo's  Ensayo,  vol.  i,  cols.  221-245.  The 
anonymous  Comedia  a  lo  pastoril  was  edited  with  an  introductory  study 
by  J.  P.  W.  Crawford  in  the  Revue  Hispanique,  vol.  xxiv,  1911.  The 
Farsa  del  sordo  was  reprinted  in  Gallardo's  Ensayo,  vol.  i,  cols.  1146-64, 
and  may  also  be  read  in  vol.  ii  of  the  Obras  de  Lope  de  Rueda,  edited 
by  Cotarelo  y  Mori,  Madrid,  1908. 

The  anonymous  Auto  de  la  quinta  august ia  was  republished  by  J.  P.  W. 
Crawford  in  the  Romanic  Review,  vol.  iii,  1912.  The  Auto  llamado 
Lucero  de  nuestra  salvacion  may  be  read  in  vol.  xxxv  of  the  Biblioteca 
de  Autores  espanoles,  no.  910,  where  it  is  ascribed  erroneously  to- 
Inocencio  de  Salceda.  Three  auctos  of  Palau's  Victoria  de  Cristo  were 
reprinted  in  the  appendices  to  Rouanet's  Coleccion  de  autos,  farsas  y 
coloquios  del  siglo  XVI,  vol.  iv,  Madrid,  1901.  The  best  study  of 
Palau's  dramatic  work  is  found  in  Rouanet's  edition  of  the  same 
author's  Farsa  llamada  custodia  del  hombre,  published  in  the  Archivo 
de  Investigaciones  historicas,  vol.  i,  1911. 

The  oft-mentioned  codex  of  ninety-six  plays  preserved  at  the  National 


APPENDIX 

Library  of  Madrid  was  published  with  important  notes  by  Leo  Rouanet, 
Coleccion  de  autos,  farsas  y  cohquios  del  siglo  XVI,  4  vols.,  Madrid, 
1901.  On  the  comic  elements  in  these  plays,  see  J.  P.  W.  Crawford, 
The  Pastor  and  Bobo  in  the  Spanish  Religious  Drama  of  the  Sixteenth 
Century,  Romanic  Review,  vol.  i,  1911,  and  The  Devil  as  a  Dramatic 
Figure  in  the  Spanish  Religious  Drama  before  Lope  de  Vega,  Romanic 
Review,  vol.  i.  A  chapter  in  Canete's  Teatro  espanol  del  siglo  XVI 
discusses  the  plays  of  Alonso  de  Torres  and  Francisco  de  las  Cuebas  on 
the  martyrdom  of  San  Justo  and  'San  Pastor,  and  the  Representacion 
of  Cuebas  was  edited'  by  J.  P.  W.  Crawford  in  the  Revue  Hispanique, 
vol.  xix,  1908.  The  dramatic  work  of  Jaime  Ferruz  is  discussed  in 
Canete's  Teatro  espanol  del  siglo  XVI. 

The  religious  plays  of  Timoneda  are  studied  in  H.  Merimee's  L'Art 
dramatique  a  Valencia,  Toulouse,  1913,  and  may  be  read  in  vol.  Iviii  of 
the  Biblioteca  de  Autores  espanoles.  Pedraza's  Danza  de  la  Muerte 
was  reprinted  in  the  same  volume,  and)  the  Comedia  de  Sancta  Susana 
may  be  read  in  Gallardo's  Ensayo,  or  in  the  edition  of  A.  Bonilla  y  San 
Martin,  Revue  Hispanique,  vol.  xxvii,  1912.  The  Auto  de  las  cartes 
de  la  Muerte  was  republished  in  vol.  xxxv  of  the  Biblioteca  de  Autores 
espanoles.  Reference  has  already  been  made  to  Rouanet's  edition  of 
the  Custodia  del  hombre  of  Palau.  The  latter's  Historia  de  Santa  Orosia 
was  published  at  Madrid  in  1883  by  Aureliano  Fernandez-Guerra  with 
the  title  Caida  y  ruina  del  imperio  visigotico  espanol.  Primer  drama 
que  las  represento  en  nuestro  teatro. 

A  brief  account  of  the  Jesuit  plays  is  found  in  the  notes  to  Ticknor's 
Historia  de  la  literatura  espanola,  vol.  ii,  Madrid,  1851,  pp.  543-59-  Two 
of  these  plays,  namely,  Parabola  Coenae  and  Examen  Sacrum,  as  well  as 
a  number  of  the  compositions  later  published  by  Rouanet,  and  an  im- 
portant study  on  the  auto  sacramental  by  E.  Gonzalez  Pedroso,  are 
included  in  vol.  Iviii  of  the  Biblioteca  de  Autores  espanoles. 

CHAPTER  VIII 

The  Farsa  de  la  castidad  de  Lucrecia  was  reprinted  by  A.  Bonilla  y 
San  Martin  in  the  Revue  Hispanique,  vol.  xxvii,  1912.  There  is  a  refer- 
ence to  the  Tragedia  de  los  amores  de  Eneas  in  Gallardo's  Ensayo,  vol. 
iv,  col.  1460. 

Pedro  Henriquez  Urefia  discusses  Perez  de  Oliva's  versions  of  Greek 
tragedies  in  his  interesting  monograph,  El  maestro  Hernan  Perez  de 
Oliva,  La  Habana,  1914.  These  translations  may  be  read  in  the  Obras 
del  maestro  Ferndn  Perez  de  Oliva,  Madrid,  1787,  or  in  vol.  vi  of 
Lopez  de  Sedano's  Parnaso  espanol.  A  fac-simile  of  the  1528  edition 
of  La  venganza  de  Agamemnon  was  published  by  Bonilla  y  San  Martin, 
Obras  dramaticas  del  siglo  XVI,  primera  serie,  Madrid,  1914. 


192 


APPENDIX 


Nise  lastimosa  and  Nise  laureada  were  reprinted  in  vol.  vi  of  Lopez 
de  Sedono's  Parnaso.  espanol,  and  also  in  the  first  volume  of  E.  de 
Ochoa's  Tesoro  del  teatro  espanol,  Paris,  1838.  Their  relationship  with 
Seneca  was  studied  by  J.  P.  W.  Crawford  in  an  article  entitled  The 
Influence  of  Seneca's  Tragedies  on  Ferreira's  Castro  and  Bermudez's 
Nise  lastimosa  and  Nise  laureada,  Modern  Philology,  vol.  xii,  1914. 

The  fourteen  plays  of  Juan  de  la  Cueva  may  be  read  in  the  two 
volume  edition  of  his  Comedias  y  tragedias,  published  in  1917  by  the 
Sociedad  de  Bibliofilos  espanoles,  with  an  introduction  by  Francisco 
A.  de  Icaza,  which  adds  considerably  to  our  knowledge  of  the  poet's 
life  and  corrects  many  previous  misstatements.  The  relationship  of  the 
Comedia  del  degollado  to  Measure  for  Measure  is  discussed  by  J.  P.  W. 
Crawford,  A  Sixteenth-Century  Spanish  Analogue  of  Measure  for 
Measure,  Modern  Language  Notes,  vol.  xxxv,  1920.  On  the  Comedia 
del  Infamador,  see  the  article  by  Joseph  E.  Gillet,  Cueva's  Comedia 
del  Infamador  and  the  Don  Juan  Legend,  published  in  Modern  Lang. 
Notes,  vol.  xxxvii,  1922.  Los  amantes  was  reprinted  in  a  limited  edition 
at  Valencia  in  1908  by  F.  Carreres  y  Valle,  with  an  introductory  study 
by  F.  Marti  Grajales,  and  it  is  also  discussed  by  Merimee  in  his  L'Art 
dramatique  d  Valencia. 

Lopez  de  Castro's  Marco  Antonio  y  Cleopatra  was  edited  by  H.  A. 
Rennert  in  the  Revue  Hispanique,  vol.  xix,  1908.  Los  cautivos  was 
printed  by  A.  Paz  y  Melia  in  the  Revista  de  Archives,  vol.  xxi,  1909. 
The  Comedia  salvaje  was  reprinted  by  Eugenio  de  Ochoa,  Tesoro  del 
teatro  espanol,  vol.  i,  Paris,  1838,  and  also  in  the  Archivo  Extremeno 
of  Badajoz.  Its  relationship  with  the  Celestina  was  discussed  by 
Menendez  y  Pelayo  in  his  Origenes  de  la  novela,  vol.  iii,  pp.  cclxviii- 
cclxx.  The  Tragedia  de  Narciso  was  edited  with  an  introductory  study 
by  J.  P.  W.  Crawford,  Philadelphia,  1909.  A  number  of  extracts  from 
the  Gran  comedia  de  los  famosos  hechos  de  Mudarra,  as  well  as  a 
critical  study  of  the  play,  are  found  in  R.  Menendez  Pidal's  well-known 
book,  La  leyenda  de  los  Infantes  de  Lara,  Madrid,  1896. 

Isabela  and  Alejandra  may  be  read  in  the  Obras  sueltas  de  Lupercio  y 
Bartolome  Leonardo  de  Argensola,  Madrid,  1889,  and  also  in  E.  de 
Ochoa's  Tesoro  del  teatro  espanol,  vol.  i,  and  in  Lopez  de  Sedano's 
Parnaso  espanol,  vol.  vi.  These  plays  were  discussed  by  J.  P.  W. 
Crawford  in  Notes  on  the  Tragedies  of  Lupercio  Leonardo  de  Argen- 
sola, Romanic  Review,  vol.  v,  1914. 

Los  tratos  de  Argel  and  La  Numancia  may  be  read  conveniently  in 
the  Teatro  complete  de  Miguel  de  Cervantes  Saavedra,  vol.  i,  Madrid, 
1896.  A  critical  study  of  the  plays  of  Cervantes  by  A.  Cotarelo  y 
Valledor  was  published  at  Madrid  in  1915.  See  also  Rudolph  Schevill's 
Cervantes,  New  York,  1919. 


APPENDIX 

I  received  too  late  for  use  in  my  discussion  of  the  plays  of  Cervantes 
the  fifth  and  sixth  volumes  of  the  Obras  completas  de  Miguel  de 
Cervantes  Saavedra,  Comedias  y  entremeses,  by  Professor  Sche- 
vill  and  Don  Adolfo  Bonilla  y  San  Martin,  published  at  Madrid  in 
1922.  Volume  five  reprints  from  manuscripts  El  trato  de  Argel  and 
El  cerco  de  Numancia,  and  volume  six  contains  an  important  study  of 
Cervantes'  plays.  The  editors  show  that  there  is  good  reason  to  believe 
that  some  of  the  plays  written  shortly  after  Cervantes'  return  from 
Algiers  were  utilized,  at  least  in  part,  in  the  composition  of  the  comedias 
published  in  1615. 

With  the  exception  of  La  gran  Semiramis,  reprinted  at  Leipzig  in 
1858,  the  tragedies  of  Virues  must  be  read  in  the  original  edition. 
These  plays  were  carefully  studied  by  Henri  Merimee  in  L'Art  drama- 
tique  <J  Valencia.  The  two  tragedies  of  Lobo  Lasso  de  la  Vega  were 
published  at  Madrid  in  1587,  and  La  destruction  de  Constantinopla  wa& 
also  included  in  a  volume  entitled  Seis  comedias  de  Lope  de  Vega 
y  de  otros  out  ores,  published  at  Lisbon  in  16031. 

La  isla  barbara  and  La  guarda  cuidadosa  were  published  by  H.  A.. 
Rennert,  Philadelphia,  1896,  with  an  important  introductory  study. 
A,  L.  Stiefel  argues  against  the  priority  of  Sanchez  to  Lope  de  Vega, 
in  the  Literaturblatt  fur  germanische  und  romanische  Philologie,  vol. 
xx,  1899,  p.  98. 

The  indebtedness  of  Lope  de  Vega  to  his  predecessors  has  been 
discussed  by  Schack,  Historia  de  la  literatura  y  del  arte  dramdtico  en 
Espana,  vol.  ii,  pp.  84-91 ;  H.  A.  Rennert,  The  Life  of  Lope  de  Vega, 
Glasgow,  1904,  pp.  378-388;  H.  A.  Rennert  and  Americo  Castro,  Vida 
de  Lope  de  Vega,  Madrid,  1919,  pp.  369-377;  James  Fitzmaurice-Kelly,. 
Lope  de  Vega  and  the  Spanish  Drama,  C-lasgow,  1902;  H.  Merimee, 
L'Art  dramatique  a  Valencia,  pp.  413-422,  and  Rudolph  Schevill,  The 
Dramatic  Art  of  Lope  de  Vega,  together  with  La  dama  boba,  Berkeley,. 
1918. 


INDEX 


Abrahan  (Aucto  de),  146 

Acusacion  contra  el  genero  hu- 
mano  (Auto  de),  144,  145 

Adan  (Farsa  del  sacramento  de), 
148 

Alione  (Giovan  Giorgio),  91,  92 

Altamira  (Pedro),  55,  185 

Alvarez  de  Ayllon  (Per),  82-83, 
187 

Amor  divino  (Farsa  del  sacra- 
mento del),  147 

Amores  de  Eneas  y  de  la  reyna 
Dido  (Tragedia  de  los),  153,  *9* 

Aparicio  (Bartolome),  139,  190 

Ariosto  (Lodovico),  100,  116,  122, 
123,  125,  128,  178 

Assumption  de  nuestra  Senora 
(Auto  de  la),  144 

Astrologo  borracho  (Entremes 
del),  136 

Asuncion  de  nuestra  Senora  (Aucto. 
de  la),  144 

Avendano  (Francisco  de).  82,  187 

Avila  (Diego  de),  105-106,  188 

Berceo  (Gonzalo  de),  184 

Bermudez  (Jeronimo),  154-157, 
192 

Bodas  de  Espana  (Farsa  sacra- 
mental de  las),  148 

Boscan  (Juan),  154 

Calderon  de  la  Barca  (Pedro),  38, 
168 

Carvajal  (Micael  de),  60-61,  150, 
185-186 

Castillejo  (Cristobal  de),  106,  188 

Celestina  (La),  36,  97,  101,  102, 
103,  168 

Cervantes  Saavedra  (Miguel  de), 
HI,  160,  170,  173-176,  192-193 

Cinco  sentidos  (Farsa  del  sacra- 
mento de  los),  148 

Circuncision  de  nuestro  Senor 
(Auto  de  la),  143 

Clorindo  (Auto  de),  104-105,  188 

Comedia  a  lo  pastoril,  139-140,  142, 
190 


Conversion  de  la  Madalena  (Auto 

de  la),  143 
Conversion  de  Sant  Pablo  (Aucto 

de  la),  145 

Cornelia  (Farsa  llamada),  81 
Cortes  de   la  yglesia    (Farsa  dtl 

sacramento  de  las),  147 
Cota  de  Maguaque  (Rodrigo),  18- 

19,  26,  34,  184 
Cuebas    (Francisco    de  las),    145, 

191 
Cueva  (Juan  de  la),  90,  158-164 

192 
Cueva  y  Silva  (Francisco  de  la), 

169,  192 
Culpa  y  la  captividad  (Aucto  de 

la),  142,  143 
Degollacion  de  Sant  Juan  Baptist  a 

(Aucto  de  la),  143 
Desafio  del  honbre   (Farsa  sacra- 
mental llamada),  147 
Descendimiento  de  la  cruz  (Aucto 

del),  143,  144 
Despedimiento   de   Christo    (Auto 

del),  143,  144 
Desposorios    de    Isac     (Auto    de 

los),  146 
Desposorios  de  Joseph   (Auto  de 

los),  146 
Desposorios  de  Moysen  (Auto  de 

los),  146 

Destierro  de  Agar  (Auto  del),  146 
Destruicion    de    Jerusalen    (Auto 

de  la),  143,  144 
Diaz  (Fernando),  49,  185 
Diaz  Tanco  de  Frexenal  (Vasco), 

55-56 

Dolce  (Lodovico),  172 
Donas  (Aucto  de  las),  148 
Doncella  y  un  pastor  (Coplas  de 

una),  Si,  187 
Dovizi    da    Bibbiena    (Bernardo), 

99-100,  113 

Duran  (Diego),  78-79-  186 
Egloga  pastoril,  78,  186 

195 


196 


INDEX 


Emperador  Juveniano  (Aucto  del), 

148 
Encina   (Juan  del),  20-38,  39,  48, 

49,  74,  78,  82,  83,  100,  103,  104, 

129,  138,  184-185 
Engano     (Farsa    del    sacramento 

del),  148 
Entendimiento     nino     (Farsa    del 

sacramento  del),  148 
Entrada   de    Cristo   en   Jerusalem 

(Auto  de  la),  143 
Entrada  del  vino  (Farsa  del  sacra- 
mento de  la),  147 
Esposa  de  los  cantares  (Farsa  del 

sacramento  de  la),  148 
Esteras  (Entremes  de  las),  136,  141 
Euripides,  154 
Famosos  hechos  de  Mudarra(Gran 

comedia  de  los),  169-170,  102 
Farqa  a  manera  de  tragedia,  103- 

104,  188 

Farsa  sacramental,  58-59,  185 
Fenisa  (Coloquio  de},  85,  144-145, 

148 

Fenisa  (Comedia),  84-85,  187 
Fernandez  (Lucas),  21,  27,  34,  38, 

39-41,   43,   48,   49,    54-55,   74-77, 

185,  186 

Ferreira  (Antonio),  155-157 
Ferruz  (Jaime),  141,  146,  191 
Fide  ypsa  (Colloquio  de),  147-148 
Finamiento  de  Jacob  (Aucto  del), 

146 

Fuente  de  la  gracia  (Farsa  sacra- 
mental de  la),  147 
Fuente   de  San  Juan    (Farsa   del 

sacramento  de  la),  148 
Giancarli  (Gigio  Arthemio),  113 
Gl'Ingannati,  114,  118 
Guete    (Jaime    de),    101-102,    109, 

188 
Hierros  de  A  dan  (Aucto  de  los), 

142 

Hijo  prodigo  (Aucto  del).  143 
Hi  jo   que  nego   a  su   padre    (En- 
tremes de  un),  136 
Horozco  (Sebastian  de),  61-62,  131, 

186 

Hospedamiento  (Auto  del),  143 
Huida  de  Egipto   (Aucto  de  la), 

143 

Hurtado  de  Toledo  (Luis),  83,  150 
Izquierdo   Zebrero    (Ausias),    140, 

144 


Jonspn  (Ben),  71 

Justicia  divina  (Auto  de  la),  142 

Ladrones    (Segundo    entr ernes    de 

los),  136 

Lazarillo  de  Tormes,  62,  135 
Lebrixa  (Fr.  Marcelo  de),  49 
Lenguajes    (Farsa  del  sacramenio 

de  los),  148 
Leonardo    de    Argensola    (Luper- 

cio),  170-173,  192 
Lepra  de  Naaman  (Aucto  de  la), 

146 
Lobo  Laso  de  la  Vega  (Gabriel), 

,179,  193 

Lopez  de  Castro  (Diego),  167,  192 
Lopez   de   Villalobos    (Francisco), 

120,  121 
Lopez  de  Yanguas  (Hernan),  37, 

48-49,  56,  58,  68,  146,  148,  185, 186 
Lopez  Ranjel  (Pero),  49,  185 
Los  cautivos,  167-168 
Lucha  de  Jacob  (Aucto  de  la),  146 
Madrid  (Francisco  de),  65 
Magna  (Aucto  del),  146 
Maldonado  (Juan),  127 
Mai  Lara  (Juan  de),  159 
Manrique  (Gomez),  12-13,  18,  148, 

184 

Martinez  (Esteban),  49 
Martyrio  de  Sancta  Barbara  (Auto 

del),  145 
Martyrio  de  Sancta  Eulalia  (Aucto 

del),  145 
Martyrio  de  Sant  Justo  y  Pastor 

(Auto^  del),  145 
Mascaron,  145 
Melgar  (Juan  de),  85 
Mendoza   (Fray  Inigo  de),  13-14, 

184 
Milagro  de  Sancto  Andres  (Aucto 

de  un),  145 

Milan  (Luis),  68-69,  186 
Miranda  (Luis  de),  no,  188 
Moneda     (Farsa    sacramental    de 

la),  147 
Montemayor   (Jorge  de),  83,   138, 

190 
Moselina    (Farsa   del   sacramento 

de),  147 
Muchacho      llamado      Golondrino 

(Entremes  de  un),  136 
Muerte  (Coplas  de  la),  64,  186 
Muerte  de  Adonias  (Auto  de  la), 

146 


INDEX 


197 


Natas  (Francisco  de  las),  103,  188 
Naval  y  Abigail  (Auto  de),  146 
Navarro  (Pedro),  126-127,  189 
Negueruela  (Diego  de),  80-81,  187 
Ortiz  (Agustin),  102-103,  188 
Paciencia   de  Job    (Auto   de   la), 

146 
Palau   (Bartolome),   109-110,   140- 

141,  142,   144,  150-151,  188,  190, 

191 

Palmyreno  (Lorenzo),  128-129 
Parabosco  (Girola_mo),  118 
Parayso    y    del   infiemo    (Tragi- 

comcdia  del),  63,  186 
Paris   (Juan  de),  79-80,  82,  187 
Pastor  (Juan),  49,  153-154,  191 
Peccado  de  Adan  (Auto  del),  145- 

146 

Pedraza  (Juan  de),  149 
Peralforja  (Farsa  del  sacramento 

de),  147 

Perez  (Juan),  114,  128,  189 
Perez    de    Oliva    (Hernan),    121, 

154,  ipi 
Pero    Hernandez     (Segundo    en- 

tremes  de),  136 

Plautus,  91,  113,  1 20,  121,  122,  127 
Prado  (Fernando  de),  67-68,  186 
Prematica    del    pan     (Farsa    del 

sacramento  llamada),  147 
Prevaricacion    de    nuestro    padre 

Adan  (Auto  de  la),  145-146 
Frisian  de  Sant  Pedro  (Aucto  de 

la),  145 

Pueblo   gentil    (Farsa   del   sacra- 
mento del),  148 
Quando  Abrahan  se  fue  a  tierra 

de  Canaan  (Auto  de),  146 
Quando  Jacob  fue  huyendo  a  las 

tierras  de  Aran  (Aucto  de),  146 
Quando    Sancta   Helena    hall6    la 

cruz  (Aucto  de),  145 
Quatro    Evangelistas    (Farsa    del 

sacramento  de  los),  147 
Quinta  angustia  (Auto  de  la),  140, 

144,  100 
Redencion     del     genera     humano 

(Auto  de  la),  143,  144 
Residencies  del  hombre    (Auto  de 

la),  147 
Residencia     del     hombre     (Farsa 

sacramental  de  la),  146-147 
Resurrecion     de     nuestro     Senor 

(Aucto  de  la),  143,  144 


Resurrection  de  Christo  (Auto  de 

la),  143,  144 

Rey  Asuero  (Auto  del),  146 
Rey  de  Artieda  (Andres),  164-167, 

192 
Reyes  Magos  (Auto  de  los),  9-10, 

183,  184 
Rey   Nabucdonosor    (Aucto  del), 

142 

Robo  de  Digna  (Auto  del)f  146 
Romero  de  Cepeda  (Joaqum),  85, 

168-169,  J87,  192 
Rosiela  (Farsa),  126,  189 
Sacrificio  de  Jete  (Auto  del),  146 
Sacramento  (Farsa  del),  147 
Sacreficio  de  Abrahan  (Auto  del), 

146 

Sanchez  (Miguel),  180-181,  193 
Sanchez  de  Badajoz  (Diego),  49- 

54,  56-57,  59-^0,  64,  81-82,   106- 

107,  130,  185,  187,  188 
Sanct  Christoval  (Aucto  de),  145 
San  Francisco  (Auto  de),  145 
Sannazzaro  (Jacopo),  66,  71 
Sanson  (Auto  de),  146 
Sant  Jorge  (Auto  de),  145 
Sembradores     (Farsa    del    sacra- 
mento de  los),  147 
Seneca,  153 

Sepulveda  ( ),  117-119,  131,  ^ 

Shakespeare    (William),   114,   115, 

163,  164,  167 

Simon  Abril  (Pedro),  121,  154 
Sophocles,  154 
Sordo  (Farsa  del),  140,  190 
Suarez   de  'Robles    (Pedro),    138- 

139,  190 
Sueno    de    Nabucdonosor    (Auto 

del),  142 

Tebaldeo  (Antonio),  32-33 
Terence,  99 
Timoneda  (Juan  de),  51,  113,  115, 

119-125,    127,    134,    135-136,    147, 

148-149,  189,  191 
Tobias  (Auto  de),  146 
Torino  (Egloga  de),  77-78,  83,  186 
Torres  (Alonso  de),  145,  191 
Torres  Naharro   (Bartolome  de), 

47-48,  65-67,  82,   87-101,    102,    103, 

104,  124,  129,  148,  186,  187-188 
Tres    coronas    (Farsa    del    sacra- 
mento de  las),  147 
Tres    estados    (Farsa   del    sacra- 
mento de  los),  147 


198 


INDEX 


Triunfos  de  Petrarca   (Aucto  de 

los),  148 
Triunpho  del  sacramento    (Farsa 

del),  147 

Ungion  de  David  (Aucto  de  la), 
146 

Vazquez  (Dionisio),  152 
Vega  (Alonso  de  la),  125-126,  189 
Vega  Carpio  (Lope  Felix  de),  158, 
161,  168,  180,  181-182,  193 


Verdad  y  la  Mentira   (Aucto  de 

la),  14? 
Vicente  (Gil),  38,  41-47,  48,  58,  63- 

64,  70-74,  98,   102,   107-109,   130, 

185 
Vie  jo  que  es  casado  con  una  mujer 

tnoza  (Entremes  de  un),  136 
Viru.es  (Cristobal  de),  176-179,  193 
Visitation  de  Sant  Antonio  (Aucto 

de  la),  145 
Zamberti  ( Earth olomeo),  99 


Publications  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania 

Series  in  Romanic  Languages 
and  Literatures 


1 .  THE  LIFE  AND  WORKS  OP  CHRIST  OBAL  SUAREZ  DB  FIGUEROA .     By].  P. 

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2.  WAS  FERNANDO  DB  HERRERA  A  GREEK  SCHOLAR?    By  R.  M.  BEACH, 

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EXTRA  SERIES 

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